Samoan 'fofo'

[Mikaele]

In my culture there’s a kind of quasi-witch doctor massage, where a person claiming to have spiritual gifts will massage a person and use various herbs whilst praying to cast out ghosts and heal physical ailments caused by spirits. I am confident that it is witch magic, but am unsure where I can find something in scripture or church documents stating this. I know that true demons can only be cast out by prayer and fasting, I just need something to back up my claims.

 

[Mintaka]

Wow, this is a bit of a technical question! I hope this answer will be helpful.

Paragraph 1673 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about exorcism and where the Church gets the authority to do it. (Jesus, of course!) It’s in the chapter on sacramentals.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) put out an Instruction on Prayers of Healing, which includes info about exorcism in Article 8. This came out in 2000, and it was written by then-Cardinal Ratzinger who’s now Pope. Basically, it says that you can’t exorcise demons unless you’ve been authorized by the bishop, like canon law says.

Here’s an unofficial translation of a 1984 document on exorcisms, also from the CDF and written by then-Cardinal Ratzinger. It reiterates canon law and points out that it’s not too good a plan to try to exorcise demons without having legit authority and proper ritual, although it does encourage the ordinary lay faithful to continue to pray to God for deliverance from evil.

You can look here to see Canon 1172 of canon law, which forbids exorcisms by anybody but a priest who’s gotten permission from his bishop.

 

[Mintaka]

Paragraph 2117 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about magic. It’s in the chapter on the First Commandment.

From 2001, here’s a Directory on Popular Piety set of principles and guidelines. It says:

What is said of the Christian Liturgy is also true of popular piety: “it may never incorporate rites permeated by magic, superstition, animism, vendettas or sexual connotations”.

It says there’s a problem with people’s faith:

when, as sometimes can happen, the faithful are taken by the idea that the world is subject to demiurgical struggles, or an incessant battle between good and evil spirits, or Angels and demons, in which man is left at the mercy of superior forces and over which he is helpless; such cosmologies bear little relation to the true Gospel vision of the struggle to overcome the Devil, which requires moral commitment, a fundamental opting for the Gospel, humility and prayer;

when the daily events of life, which have nothing or little to do with our progressive maturing on the journey towards Christ are read… simplistically… so as to ascribe all setbacks to the Devil…

Pope Benedict’s homily last year in Luanda says this, which may encourage you:

Today it is up to you, brothers and sisters, following in the footsteps of those heroic and holy heralds of God, to offer the Risen Christ to your fellow citizens. So many of them are living in fear of spirits, of malign and threatening powers. In their bewilderment they end up even condemning street children and the elderly as alleged sorcerers. Who can go to them to proclaim that Christ has triumphed over death and all those occult powers (cf. Eph 1:19-23; 6:10-12)?

Someone may object: “Why not leave them in peace? They have their truth, and we have ours. Let us all try to live in peace, leaving everyone as they are, so they can best be themselves.” But if we are convinced and have come to experience that without Christ life lacks something, that something real – indeed, the most real thing of all – is missing, we must also be convinced that we do no injustice to anyone if we present Christ to them and thus grant them the opportunity of finding their truest and most authentic selves, the joy of finding life. Indeed, we must do this. It is our duty to offer everyone this possibility of attaining eternal life.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us say to them, in the words of the Israelite people: “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn, that he may heal us.” Let us enable human poverty to encounter divine mercy. The Lord makes us his friends, he entrusts himself to us, he gives us his Body in the Eucharist, he entrusts his Church to us. And so we ought truly to be his friends, to be one in mind with him, to desire what he desires and to reject what he does not desire. Jesus himself said: “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn 15:14). Let this, then, be our common commitment: together to do his holy will…

 

[Mintaka]

Now, there are a lot of healing prayers and stuff that ordinary laypeople can do without trespassing on priests’ authority. There are a lot of sacramental oils and medals and so forth that people can utilize. And obviously, just plain massage or other natural, lawful means of healing are permissable.

But it does sound like you’re seeing something that goes way past the line of normal stuff like that. I also see some references on the internet to the churches on Samoa preaching against fofo in the past, so maybe you need to find out what they used to say? Your diocese probably has more information about this than me, or even the Vatican!

I did find on Google Books a recent study called Samoan Medical Belief and Practice, by Cluny and La’avasa Macpherson, which seems to have a lot of historical and background information. I don’t know if it would tell you anything you don’t already know; but it’s all information.

Basically, it’s not a good idea for a Christian to give any impression of participating in pagan or superstitious practices. But if the superstition could be taken out and the useful natural healing practices retained, then it wouldn’t be a problem.

How to get from Point A to Point B? I don’t know. Again, this would probably be something to talk to your diocese about.