WHERE'S THE EXORCIST WHEN YOU NEED HIM? In the small town of my birth, we had an official called a "fence walker." The office was a vestige of the days in which my town grew crops instead of cherubic suburban children, and I always thought the office still existed because nobody ever noticed it. I feel the same way about the fact that the Vatican apparently has an official exorcist. However, I sort of wish the guy would keep a lower profile than this. In the first place, the Vatican should avoid any publicly uttered sentence in which the names Pius XII and Hitler bump up against each other. Second, this sort of thing makes the church of my birth look completely nuts. And last, why in God's name doesn't this guy get on the stick and give us a hand with, say, the Department of Justice?
--Charles P. Pierce
