The NHS should treat spiritual illnesses as well as physical and mental ones, the Archbishop of York has said in the House of Lords
A Daily Telegraph report today states :
Dr John Sentamu said that humans are “psychosomatic spiritual entities” as he told peers how he freed the spirit of a girl who feared she was going to be sacrificed by witches.
The second-most senior cleric in the Church of England said that doctors had been unable to help the child in south London, who was unable to move or speak after seeing a goat killed at a “coven”.
He claimed she had returned to normal after he said a prayer, anointed her with oil and lit a candle, in what commentators say appears to have been a traditional exorcism.
The Archbishop told the House of Lords the story during a debate on NHS reforms to illustrate his belief illnesses can be spiritual as well as physical and mental, and that the health authorities should cater for all of them.
During a debate on the Health and Social Care Bill on Wednesday, he said: “I am one of those who believe that human beings are psychosomatic spiritual entities.
“The element of the spiritual well-being of people is not on the face of the Bill but I am absolutely convinced that, as it stands, my needs would be taken care of because it talks about, ‘the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of illness’.”
He went on to say that the new Health and Wellbeing Boards – being set up in each local authority around England as a forum for medics, councillors and patients – should have “a responsibility to ensure that physical, mental and spiritual well-being are taken care of”.
Dr Sentamu was a judge in Uganda before fleeing Idi Amin’s regime, and after being ordained as a Church of England priest served parishes in Kingston, Herne Hill, Tulse Hill and Brixton during the early 1980s.
He said: “When I first became a vicar of a parish in south London I was invited into a home because somebody said that there was a presence there. I did not understand that phrase but I went into the home where there was a young girl who had not been able to move for nearly three weeks.
“The GP, a psychiatrist and a psychologist had visited the house. Sometimes the girl shouted a lot in the middle of the night. I went into the house and asked how the girl had got into that difficult state.
“Somebody said that they had been to a witches’ coven that night where a goat had been sacrificed and the young girl was absolutely petrified that she would be sacrificed next. She could not speak apart from shouting.
“Doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists had attended the girl. All that I could do was to say a prayer in that little house, anoint the girl with oil and light a candle.
“I left and received a telephone call later to say that the young girl was no longer terrified and had started to speak. That was not mental or physical illness; there was something in her spirit that needed to be set free.”
Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: “It sounds like it had a lot in common with an exorcism.
“I do find it very troubling that someone so senior in the established church should associate himself with this mediaeval mumbo-jumbo.”
He said that giving people exorcism rites may prevent them receiving medical help for mental health problems.
The Church of England does not use the term exorcism, but it does have a Deliverance Ministry with a cleric on standby in each of its 43 diocese to cast out evil spirits if required to do so.
A spokesman for the Archbishop said the case of the young girl just involved a standard prayer of healing.