Obituaries : Father Karl Patzelt, 71; Performed Exorcisms

Father Karl Patzelt, a Catholic priest who performed an exorcism for a Daly City family who complained that its house was plagued by spontaneous fires and flying objects, has died in Los Gatos.

Patzelt, who was 71, died Thursday at Sacred Heart Jesuit Center, where he had been under care for two years after Alzheimer’s disease forced him to give up his parish, Our Lady of Fatima Byzantine Catholic Church in San Francisco.

He attracted widespread publicity after he made 14 visits during 1973 to the home of a young airline employee, who later claimed that the priest drove Satan away from the family.

It was the same year the movie, “The Exorcist,” was released. “That was unfortunate because it sounded like this whole thing was cooked up,” said a parishioner who accompanied the priest during many of the exorcism sessions. “None of us had seen the movie. Patzelt did go to see it after it was all over with. He thought it was a junky movie.”

Born in Austrian Empire

Patzelt, born in a small town in the Austrian Empire and who had served time in a Soviet prison camp, was ministering to Russian-speaking Catholics when he met the Daly City family. He traveled weekly to read the Byzantine liturgy at a Carmelite convent where the troubled couple had sought help. The nuns turned to Patzelt for advice.

After he investigated the reports of odd occurrences at the Daly City house, he became convinced that the devil was infesting the place and received permission from the Archbishop of San Francisco to try to solve the problem.

“I went with kind of a jaundiced eye to begin with,” said the parishioner who accompanied Patzelt. “But the lady’s head was being banged against the wall. It was so rapid. I went home and tried it myself . . . and you can’t do it to yourself. The husband cut his arm being thrown through a window.”

Patzelt, a serious, intense man with a long, dark beard, recited prayers in English, Latin and Slavonic, sprinkled holy water and burned incense until the mysterious happenings ended.

Though Patzelt told his story on network television, the family’s name was never revealed. “They visited once in a while and they’re doing fine,” said the parishioner, who asked not to be identified. The family never gave Patzelt a gift for his efforts “because they’re of modest means and they spent all their money repairing their house.”

Later, Patzelt was inundated with calls from others who thought they were receiving visits from Satan. “That first one seemed to have been real, but later I think he got fooled by a lot of people,” said Father John Geary, a friend who is a hospital chaplain in Mountain View.

Patzelt performed about half a dozen more exorcisms but was told to stop after a new archbishop was appointed, Geary said.

“He got into it, we think, a little too deeply,” Geary said. “But he was sincere and a good man.”

Services were scheduled Sunday evening in Los Gatos and today at Our Lady of Fatima. Patzelt is survived by three brothers, a niece and a nephew, all living in Sweden.