Students forced to take 'exorcism' course at publicly funded Spanish university

By Elle Griffiths
Mirror
May 7, 2016

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/weird-news/students-forced-take-exorcism-course-7916077

Father Jos Antonio Fortea Cucurul will lead the controversial course

Exorcisms continue to be practiced across the world

A University in Spain will force its students to attend a course on 'exorcisms'.

The University College of Barberan and Collan has made attedance at the lecture, called "The Evil", compulsory for its 196 students.

The bizarre course will be led by Roman Catholic priest José Antonio Fortea Cucurull, believed to be an expert on the controversial practice.

It will cover fields "related to the devil, exorcisms and being possessed and hell", it was reported newspaper El Diario.

Father Cucurull has previously written a 'manual' on exorcism.

But the priest made headlines in 2010 when he defended the Vatican after the Pope's chief exorcist claimed the child sex abuse scandals rocking the Church were evidence of the Devil's presence there.

And the move is believed to have angered some of the student body although no-one has yet lodged a complaint or attempted to be excused.

The college is connected to Complutense University of Madrid and is funded by Spain's Defence Ministry.

Exorcisms are not associated solely with Catholicism but were made famous by the 1973 film The Exorcist in which a Catholic priest attempts to cast out a demon possessing a teenage girl.