Manila Opens Asia's Only Exorcist Training Center
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- Michael Center for Spiritual Liberation and Exorcism, described by its director as the only facility in the world that trains exorcists, opened five months ago just off a busy Metro Manila thoroughfare to handle "cases piling up" of people seeking the 400-year-old ritual.
- Father Jose Francisco Syquia said priests from Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, and India were already lining up for training at the two-storey centre, which operates without strict Vatican oversight but requires mental health vetting before any rite.
- The Philippines has roughly one psychiatrist for every 200,000 people, with some provinces having none at all, according to the World Health Organization — a gap Manila-based psychiatrist Kathryn Tan said drives patients to indigenous healers first and treats psychiatry as a "last resort."
- Syquia attributed the surge in exorcism cases to trauma from bullying, sexual abuse, and family separation as relatives leave for work abroad, saying the centre's clinical psychologists, psychiatrist, and neurologists work "hand in hand" with the priests.
- University of London psychologist Christopher French warned that accepting supernatural explanations delays appropriate treatment, noting that conditions including schizophrenia and Tourette's syndrome were once interpreted as spirit possession, though he conceded an exorcism might have a beneficial placebo effect in some cases.
- Syquia conceded that greater national investment in mental health care would likely reduce his caseload, framing the relationship bluntly: "If psychology and psychiatry, if proper mental and emotional health (are) fostered in our country, there will be (fewer exorcism) cases. Science is a gift from God."
Why it matters: With one psychiatrist per 200,000 Filipinos and deep cultural stigma against psychiatric care, the Catholic Church has effectively become the front line for people in psychological distress — meaning a diagnostic misstep at the exorcism rite could delay treatment for serious conditions like schizophrenia or psychosis. Syquia's own concession that expanded mental health funding would shrink his workload underscores how thin the country's clinical safety net really is.
