Yesterday we went to mass and the homily was about paranormal activity. It was surprise! 

The Priest said that at least once a week, and sometimes several times a week, he gets a call from someone complaining of paranormal activity at their house.  Noises, voices, things moving or flying around. It was interesting to hear him explain how he handled the calls...the process he uses to discern whether it's appropriate he get involved.

Do you know anything about this?

Wow, very interesting.

Paranormal activity doesn't bother me that much. Maybe a little if I'm alone.

I have definitely experienced things that would be considered paranormal (i.e. seen ghosts/undefinable phenomenon, heard things, etc.).  Because I am not Catholic, though, it never occurred to me to contact a priest.

I think people might be calling him because they see this on TV, which he also mentioned.

He is a Mexican priest and he also said both English and Spanish speaking people call him which was also interesting.

Not too surprised because they do exorcisms, don't they? Perhaps this is an offshoot of this?

@ArmyBrat, right. And he was trying to educate people that it was probably not the devil in their house and how to deal with this.

He definitely acknowledged this exists.

I think you have an unusual priest.  I can't imagine any of the priests here talking about such things during Mass.

That being said, Catholic faith is chock full of paranormal activity - transmutation of Christ, assumption and impregnantion of Mary, transubstantiation of bread and wine, the sacrement of exorcism, etc.

Yeah, I could never imagine telling my priest something like this if it happened.

Well, they want him to come over and do something. Bless their house.

If someone was calling me 100 times a year about a problem, It's think it appropriate to address.

I love the idea of blessing a house, spirits or not

And he was trying to educate people that it was probably not the devil in their house and how to deal with this

He's providing an excellent service with this. Spirit has a tendency to scare people. But, that isn't warranted all the time.

my house is full of ghosts - they don't bother anything

I recomend one of those water guns full of holy water and garlic bulbs..... works great on non-spirits , too!!

Just going and blessing the house probably saves time too, rather than enduring endless anxious telephone calls.

I just ate a bunch of garlic at lunch... 

On another note, I've had Mexican folks ask me to come clean their house (limpiadora).  I didn't feel comfortable, like I had that authority, so I politely said no and offered them DIY tips instead.

I didn't get the impression he ran out and blessed houses once a week, because of this.  He seemed more bent that a person take responsibility for their own house,

He did say if the spirit is not trying to HURT or KILL you, then it was probably not the devil. He specified, things thrown at you, or like a bookcase falling on you is concerning but these are not the typical calls.

Anyway, my impression was that he has people deal with this stuff themselves and if they have done everything he tells them too, then he would go out. He told one story of how he went to someone's house because someone had died there so he went over to pray and help that guy out, and then he blessed the house and this worked.

But he is not running out to your house unless you have exhausted all the things you can do to help yourself and/or the spirits in your house.

Paranormal activity fascinates me. I never have experienced it. Idk if it's my oblivious Jupiter or what but my sister experiences this stuff constantly. She has 8th house and strong Neptune. It disturbs her to the point she won't sleep with the light off. I think it's cool the priest brought this up. Having ones house blessed seems like a great idea! Clear away any negative spirits

Why it interests me is because I have zero experience with this myself. I just have to take other people's word that this stuff does in fact happen.

Sounds like you have a great priest. He teaches how to fish and holds accountable :)

Rad Priest.  I think I would like him.

ETA: I really like the image you posted Elsa!

I've experienced paranormal activity, several times in my life, so I know it exists. It's interesting that the priest addressed it, and that so many people seem to be experiencing these phenomenon.

PS I am not impressed by what they find on those Paranormal TV shows. The stuff I've witnessed goes way beyond the sad little electronic readings that they do. I've never seen or heard an actual spirit on these shows.

My husband said he has heard this before (in church) and in fact, the priest did not say anything I have not heard from my husband before, other than specifics as to how he handles these calls and how he feels about them.

We had this conversation, right before I came back on the board and read, Rachel's comment. My husband's remark was, 'Everyone who has been around a day, knows there is paranormal activity". This contrast struck me.

I think the term "paranormal" is pretty broad so we may be talking about other things.

I've no doubt at all that some people are particularly 'permeable' to the spirit world - I know I'm not, but that doesn't mean I disbelieve.

There are many medieval houses still intact in every village for miles round here, not to mention Georgian and Victorian, and it's an area with quite a violent history (Peasants' Revolt, religious wars and persecutions etc) so it's pretty well expected that people 'see things' quite a lot.

I live less than ten miles from Borley Rectory, possibly 'the most haunted house in England'; it's very unclear however how much was invented by people getting carried away with the story, and how much was genuinely paranormal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borley_Rectory

http://www.foxearth.org.uk/BorleyRectoryPictures/Page.html

@Elsa " My husband's remark was, 'Everyone who has been around a day, knows there is paranormal activity"."

If I hadn't experienced it myself, then I would probably be a skeptic and not a believer.

@BP "There are many medieval houses still intact in every village for miles round here, not to mention Georgian and Victorian, and it's an area with quite a violent history"

Although I like and appreciate the architecture and history, I would be wary of living in a very old house - too many people/spirits passing thru there!

How fascinating! When I was in high school we lived in a house my whole family agrees was haunted. I remember a brief discussion my parents had about calling a priest but it never seemed to happen. Wasn't a mean ghost, actually it was a child, so I they figured we'd live with it I guess.

'Everyone who has been around a day, knows there is paranormal activity". I think a lot of people do have paranormal experience just maybe they don't know it or remember it or acknowledge it as such. Is this a Pisces priest? Because that's the kind of thing I'm saying all the time lol.

Great thinking on your Priest's part...very thoughful.  I hear the Vatican has the largest collection of occult books so maybe he has a hotline.  BTW, when I attended UCLA they had a preeminent paranormal studies team...didn't discuss this fact but we all knew about their interests.

night, it was my husband who said that, not the priest.

He (my husband) also said he had heard about this in church before and a priest he was friendly with also said he was called all the time and by Protestants.

We got our house blessed, but not because of any paranormal activity. Just your regular old blessing.

The building I live in which dates back to the C15th (it's been much altered since then but the timbered shell is original) was used for a long time as the village Workhouse, when it ceased to serve as the Guildhall. But I've been very much happier living here than I have been for years, in spite of this harsh history within the house.

I've always preferred a really old house - modern houses feel quite literally 'soulless' to me. I love the feel of buildings (esp houses) with centuries of history in them. And I've always loved graveyards - I live now right across the lane from ours. It must be all my Saturn!

I've definitely heard of Catholic priests in this country being asked to exorcise houses and other buildings - old hotels and pubs seem particularly affected by lingering spirits, and so are several theatres, not to mention most of the surviving castles and many churches.

Anglican vicars are asked regularly too btw.

I do not know much about paranormal activity, but maybe because he is from Mexico, he is open to it and people see this?

A lot of Mexican culture involves superstition, dia de los muertos, "brujos," etc. There are also dozens of shows on Mexican television based around the paranormal and even exorcism, so maybe he is just used to it. We had a Catholic priest like that when we lived in Mexico, and he interacted a lot with the indigenous people (one of the groups is Mixtec, who I believe were animists) who lived in the inland parts of town.

A friend of mine took a class that talked about spells Catholics did. I asked her to cite me sources about this (alas, not anything I can put online) to prove this because HOLY SHIT. Apparently it was considered okay to deface and damage statues of saints and holy relics (say, dump them upside down in water or mud) in order to force them to give you whatever it was you were praying for-- and if that didn't work, to destroy their baptismal records and church records to REALLY make them kick in. I could not believe this! How rude!

Interesting thread....I've lived in 'haunted' houses all my life and just accept it as normal. I went to uni in York which is a place with ALOT of history and you can certainly feel it no matter where you go.
I think alot of these paranormal investigating programs have alot to answer for and can make people over react if they experience 'something' which very often there is a perfectly reasonable explination for. Maybe the church realises people's imaginations are kicking in and that's why they are advising people to manage it themselves. I suppose it's a bit of empowerment?

To be brief, you have to build up the positive energy in the home with your family in order to drive the negative energy away.  Negative energy cannot sustain itself in positive energy. 

Love, laugh, sing, be a good person, pray. 

http://www.catholicwarriors.com/pages/warfare_prayers.htm

Paul Eno has a website called Behind the Paranormal.  He has a radio show with the same name with podcasts from 2008.  I have been listening to him from the beginning.  He attended seminaries and was asked to leave because what he saw in the field did not make sense with what the church was teaching. 

His credentials have been earned over 40 years investigating psychic phenomena.  He has also written books on the subject. 

Reasons for this activity is varied, as with anything, but a lot of them are parasites who feed on negative energy, it seems.

I lived with one who destroyed any happiness it saw.  When I looked at it from this perspective, it all made sense, and I was then able to fight it and get rid of it.

I tell  em the  watch  the  place  while  I`m  gone  , Glenn  you  said  a  funny  one ! , and that  is  one  cool priest ~

lsernia: Negative energy cannot sustain itself in positive energy.

This is so true! I was an extremely negative child. I was also a psychic sponge. It took a spiritual transformation in my 20s to help me develop personal fortitude in the face of dark matter/evil/what-have-you.

Where I grew up everyone was Catholic (for centuries, it was very traditional and devout community), and before people moved into a new house, it was a matter of protocol to have the priest bless it first. They firmly believed they needed the help of the Lord to drive out any malevolent spirits/ancestors occupying the place.

Apparently my mother's house is haunted. A few people have reported - on separate occasions - the apparition of a young boy who died there before she moved in.

I'm very afraid of ghosts, though not as much as before. I've heard them a couple times. Have not seen anything - thank God, that would do me in! Whenever I feel an outsider presence in my home, I visualize myself painting the walls with white light. It marks my home as a safe place.

When I was a child the things I saw scared the crap out of me, in the era of "Ghost Hunters" people don't understand the paranormal as religion has left it a least discussed subject. I've experienced a mix of residual and intelligent hauntings. Old houses/buildings with deep history can have varying numbers of good/negative entities, the negative feed off negative emotion/fear and good entities are often protective of the residents(spirit in my home has protected me since I was 7yrs old). One day I should start a blog based on my notebooks of experiences/research/how to crossover shadow entities, sometimes I wonder if it would help others out there

Smogster, there is a difference between making someone gain empowerment and putting that person at an unnecessary risk if the spirit/shadow/demon is under-estimated--negative entities typically act like a trickster then move to harmful actions as it feeds from the fear/negative emotion, if you aren't careful they'll attach onto a person to create further chaos. Until you've had the wind knocked out of you, scratched or worse pushed around, being attacked by the "unseen" isn't fun.

I'm not surprised the Catholic Church/Priests won't touch paranormal activity unless the person tried everything/reports raise enough red flags but I still believe blessing a house should be offered/tried. In my experience Catholic Church tried to keep this type of stuff hushed up as much as possible(pre-Ghost Hunters era) and lack of open discussion in our younger years stikes fear when the unexplained happens(people from my past who snickered at me of seeing 'spirits' since childhood get a massive shock of reality when they experience a ghost/shadow person). What I always found interesting is when you talk about paranormal experiences in a Methodist Church, there is a more open understanding/differences of 'spirits/ghosts, shadows & demons' and members of the church don't give you the stare as if you have two heads.

*shrugs* I was raised a Catholic and the things I've seen in my life/stuck dealing with it alone... I can't forgive a church.

I think blessing a home before you move in is a great idea: wish we had done this in the past!

We lived in this one house where everyone saw something creepy. I hated it. I am simultaneously fascinated and terrified of that stuff (12H Pluto). We had our pastor (we were evangelical) come and bless our house with anointing oil and prayer. It was fine for awhile, but my parents created incredibly negative energy that probably added to the problem. This strikes me as perfectly normal lol My entire childhood was filled with talk and experiences of angels and demons and ghosts.

If I experienced this again, I would pray, burn sage, and ask other spiritually minded friends and family to come pray in my house. I don't like to mess with that stuff.

I don't believe in that stuff but i believe people get anxious. I can understand calling a priest to paranormally combat the paranormal.

The BBC had a drama series called Apparitions about a Catholic priest who investigates this phenomena on behalf of the Vatican. I thought it was well-done. Scary but not hokey.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fjgdg