The subject of exorcism, the liturgical rite to expel demons from the possessed, has attracted considerable attention in the past few decades. Most of the scholarship on the subject has focused on the exorcism of demoniacs in late medieval and early modern Europe, but the revival of the practice in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has aroused poplar interest as well. Francis Young's authoritative study of exorcism in the Catholic Church from the fourth century to the present differs from much previous scholarship in that it deals not only with the exorcism of demoniacs but also with the use of exorcism liturgies in baptism (in which the Catholic liturgy originated), the exorcism of houses and holy water, and even exorcism of the atmosphere. Young also expands the geographical scope of the subject in a chapter on the use of exorcism by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries in the New World and Asia during the Counter-Reformation. The scope of the book is limited only by Young's exclusive concern with Catholic Christianity, as he chooses not to discuss the history of Jewish exorcism (either in biblical times or the Middle Ages) or in some Protestant confessions.

Young charts the waxing and waning of the popularity of liturgical exorcism during a history punctuated by periods of crisis, the first being between the years 900 and 1500, a period marked first by charismatic rather than clerical exorcisms in which demoniacs took refuge in shrines and monasteries to be exorcised by holy men. Between 1100 and 1300 liturgical exorcism almost disappeared, but it revived somewhat in the fifteenth century, and by the sixteenth it flourished during the golden age of demonic possession. The problem for the Church that arose during that period was the rash of unofficial exorcism manuals by Girolamo Menghi, Pietro Antonio Stampa and others. These manuals eventually led the Church to issue a standard rite of exorcism in its Rituale romanum of 1614, a rite that the Vatican did not officially replace until 1999. The early modern period also witnessed severe confessional strife in which Protestants labelled Catholic exorcisms as superstitious, pagan and magical. After this period of religious conflict, liturgical exorcism entered another period of crisis, marked by scepticism inspired by enlightened rationalism, Augustinian theology and opposition from the clerical hierarchy and the medical community. Only in the late nineteenth century, influenced by Pope Leo xiii’s placement of the struggle against Satan at the centre of the Catholic mission, did exorcism gather renewed support in clerical circles. Even then, however, the number of exorcisms reached its nadir in the 1960s and early 1970s, and it was only in the last fifty years that the practice regained widespread popularity. Young attributes this renewal of exorcisms more to demand from lay Catholics seeking relief from their spiritual and physical anxieties than to popular films such as The exorcist (1971). He devotes his final chapter to this recent surge in Catholic exorcisms. Much of this chapter consists of the views of the exorcists themselves, such as Gabriele Amorth and José Antonio Fortea, and scholars who have commented, either positively or critically, on these men's writings.

The book does not present a single overarching thesis or central argument, but three themes recur throughout the book. The first is the adaptiveness and flexibility of the Catholic ritual, both in wording and practice. The second is the persistence of at least moderate scepticism among theologians and members of the clerical hierarchy. This caution was most apparent in the early seventeenth century when the papacy issued its official liturgy, but in the centuries that followed Catholic authorities consistently balanced scepticism and credulity in their efforts to control and regulate the practice. The third recurrent theme is the division in Catholic opinion, which Young persuasively argues originated in the crisis generated by the exorcisms at Loudun in the 1630s.

The great strength of the book is Young's detailed exposition and analysis of the exorcism liturgies themselves and the theological and demonological contexts in which they were produced. This textual approach yields, inter alia, an extensive comparison – some of it in tabular form – between the Rituale romanum of 1614 on the one hand and the eighth-century Gellone Sacramentary, the Paris Supplement of the same period, and the revised rite of 1999 on the other. Young also describes some lesser known texts in detail, including the early eighteenth-century Spanish treatise Tratado de exorcismus, which was composed when exorcisms were falling into disuse in most parts of Europe. A history of exorcism in Catholic Christianity is a valuable contribution to Catholic theological and liturgical history. Because it includes relatively few exorcism narratives, it has less to contribute to the social history of religion. Also, the narratives that do appear do little to capture the drama of these exorcisms, which were theatrical productions in every sense of the word.