My book project examines the process by which Catholics utilize discourse of global Satanism as a rhetorical strategy for reifying Catholic identity via the Christian persecution complex. My book tells the untold story of how folk and mediatized fears of global Satanic conspiracy fuel the revived institutional support of the Catholic Church’s office of exorcist – that is, multiple training programs, papal mandates, revised ritual manuals, and increased appointments of priest-exorcists in dioceses across the globe. I demonstrate how modern Catholic exorcists, post-1998, serve parishioners as trained anti-occultists and not simply ritual specialists. They are trained to reduce the number of exorcisms performed, approaching possession cases as exceedingly rare, and, instead, recommend that most supplicants receive psychiatric treatment. Elite human cabals, however, emerge as a more clear and present danger for active Catholic exorcists, fearful that Satanism and occult practice persecute an already threatened Catholic social body. With this first book grant, I would conduct new interviews – with the dozens of contacts made during my dissertation fieldwork – probing the extent of such American/global Satanic conspiracies: the folklore of underground networks centered on Satanic ritual abuse and anti-Christian persecution.