# The Roman Ritual

**Rituale Romanum**

**Known today as.** The book of rites for the priest, issued by Pope Paul V in 1614, the year of Canale’s treatise.

Kind: Sacramental

## What was it used for?

It contains the sacraments, blessings, and processions, and, in its title on exorcism, the rules and rite for delivering the possessed, with warnings against credulity: the exorcist is to judge carefully whether a person is truly possessed or merely ill.

## What does modern science say?

Replaced by new rituals after the Second Vatican Council; the rite of exorcism was revised in 1999.

## What lore surrounds it?

It brought order to the crowded field of manuals like Menghi’s, and its rite of exorcism held until 1999.

## What did the older authorities say?

**The Catholic Encyclopedia.** The Catholic Encyclopedia calls the Ritual “the latest and still the least uniform book of our rite.” Before it, “every local rite, almost every diocese, had such books,” called Manuale, Agenda or Sacramentale; Paul V published the first official edition in 1614 so that priests “should carry out their office according to a public and fixed standard, instead of following so great a multitude of Rituals,” yet “the Ritual has never been imposed as the only standard. Paul V did not abolish all other collections.” Its tenth title holds “Exorcism and forms for filling up parochial books,” and the appendix of blessings “is now nearly as long as the original book.”

## Sources

- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Ritual.” newadvent.org/cathen/13088b.htm

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*The Roman Ritual.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/rituale-romanum

Historical description, not medical advice.