Exorcist, leader of Arkansas Charismatic Renewal to retire

Published: June 12, 2010

By Marilyn Lanford
Rogers Correspondent

Marilyn Lanford

Msgr. James Mancini has been a priest for 44 years, but he has only served as pastor of St. Bernard Church Bella Vista for one year.

Marilyn Lanford

Msgr. James Mancini has been a priest for 44 years, but he has only served as pastor of St. Bernard Church Bella Vista for one year.

BELLA VISTA -- Msgr. James Mancini, pastor of St. Bernard Church, reflected recently on his 44 years as a diocesan priest as he prepares for his retirement this month. Over the years, he said that it is in pastoral work that he feels most at home.

"As a pastor, you are a shepherd of all the people; you don't get to pick your sheep. That is a difference I had to learn. It makes you see things differently too," he said.

After his ordination in 1966, he served as prison chaplain, a teacher at Catholic High School in Little Rock and a campus minister. However, when he received his first assignment as an associate pastor at Immaculate Conception Church in Fort Smith, Msgr. Mancini said, "I fell in love with pastoral work and all its aspects. Msgr. (William) Galvin was one of the best pastors I ever served under. The people there saw us as a team and I learned a lot from him. It was a happy time."

His next two assignments as assistant pastor changed and broadened his outlook as a priest. While at St. Joseph Church in Pine Bluff he learned more about Cursillo.

"This is the thing that changed me. The Cursillo group there became a very powerful influence in my life," he said.

According to Msgr. Mancini, it was during this time that the group spontaneously received the Holy Spirit and began to manifest the gifts of tongues and prophecy.

"This occurred in 1972 after my next assignment at (Our Lady of) Good Counsel in Little Rock," he said. "I was just out of the hospital and recuperating from surgery. I went back to Pine Bluff to see the group again and to find out more about it. They prayed over me; it wasn't very dramatic, but my life changed after that. I felt the power of the Holy Spirit and I was very eager to be with others who were so enthusiastic in the Holy Spirit."

Today Msgr. Mancini, 69, is the liaison for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the diocese. Appointed by Bishop Andrew J. McDonald, he served on the National Diocesan Liaisons Association for the Charismatic Renewal as chairman and treasurer of the steering committee. As part of his work with the steering committee, he chaired a symposium on deliverance ministry in Houston, Texas. A book titled "Deliverance Prayer" was then published and sent to American bishops, urging them to appoint in each diocese a team of priests for inquiries about possible exorcisms. Msgr. Mancini currently continues to work as an exorcist for the diocese.

"I get one or two calls a week," he said. "Many of these are situations involving cults. People who suffered abuse growing up in cults too. It seems the area around southern Missouri and northern Arkansas is where the most intense family occult groups are.

"We've had one fellow bringing people to us who are in these cults and they want to get out. I try to find out what makes them vulnerable -- how they are presently living their lives," he said.

Msgr. Mancini explained the need for a faith community for these individuals, even if it is only a prayer group. Many are non-Catholics and don't belong to a church.

"You need the protection -- you've got to be living in faith," he said. "Once I became an exorcist, I realized the influence of the evil one. But Jesus conquers all of that."

A constant in Msgr. Mancini's life as a priest has been his health problems. Even as a young priest, he underwent knee and back surgeries. Today he must walk with a cane. But as a pastor, he continues to make the parish sick calls each week.

"Some of the people are just stunned to have a priest in their home. Some say they have never had a priest in their home, even when they were sick. Ministry to the sick is something I enjoy," he said.

In the early 1900s Msgr. Mancini's grandparents immigrated from Italy to the Sunnyside Plantation near Lake Village along the Mississippi River. But by the time he was born in 1940, his parents had moved to North Little Rock.

However, his father died when Msgr. Mancini was young.

"My father died when I was 3 so I had to have 'father substitutes.' Many things I learned as a child, I learned from these 'father substitutes', especially my Uncle Tony. Later in my seminary studies, I discovered that in comparing priests to fathers, the many things I do now, I learned a long time ago from my 'father substitutes,'" he said.

In 1954 at the age of 13, Msgr. Mancini entered preparatory seminary and was ordained from St. John Home Missions Seminary in Little Rock May 28, 1966.

This month Msgr. Mancini will be moving to St. John Manor, the retirement home for diocesan priests in Little Rock. He plans to conduct several retreats a year. He is a frequent speaker at days of renewal, conferences and retreats around the country.