[granville1]

As time permits I will post some articles from the “intellectual” Catholic periodical, America, from February 1974 – just a couple of months after the film was released. The articles are serious and critical. I don’t agree with all the opinions voiced therein, but am posting just to give an overall picture of how The Exorcist impacted Catholic American thinking.

[Blizzi]

Good info is good to have. Whether we agree or not, it’s nice to hear the different camps of a topic. I’m not Catholic. I’m not about to be converted to anything. I don’t agree, but, as far as I’m concerned, Harm no one, and do what you will. I look forward to your upcoming posts, as always. 😉

[granville1]

The following series of articles will be taken from “America” – published by the Jesuits of the United States and Canada.
February 2, 1974.
Vol. 130, No. 4 Whole No. 3337
Owned and published by the America Press, Inc., 106 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019

Article One: condensed editorial, page 65:

Exorcising ‘The Exorcist’

… The Church as always recognized the possibility of possession, that is, the invasion of a personality by an alien evil spirit that seizes control of the personality and displaces normal human consciousness. Although there are no instances of diabolical possession in the Old Testament, there are a number of dramatic confrontations portrayed in the New Testament… Similarly, there have always been Church rituals for exorcism, not only the extraordinary kind of ritual enacted in the film, but more familiar appeasl… Yet the Church has become increasingly wary of designating instances of possession.

This skepticism is based not only on increased scientific knowledge but also on genuine religious insight. A preoccupation with the magical and the occult runs counter to the character of Christian faith, which is a response to God’s Word incarnate in the human condition. True experiences of transcendence are not realized by a denial and a darkening of the human spirit but by stretching it toward the light. This is not to say that there are not forces in the world and in our lives that cannot be reduced to the confines of human categories. But it is to say that the authentic limits of understanding can be recognized only by those who trust an drespect human intelligence and freedom. One danger of the current preoccupation with demonic possession is the refuge it offers from facing the demons that are of our own making… the dark forces we must wrestle with if we are to be children of the light.

… Like the other miracles of the New Testament, the religious meaning of these exorcisms did not lie in their magical effects, but in their revelation of the healing power of God’s love. What is magical astonishes and inevitably deceives. What is sacramental reveals and illuminates.

If the Church, then, chosses to be reserved and cautious about reports of demonic possession, it is not the result of a corrosion of faith by secular science. Such caution does not reflect a lack of belief in the reality of Satan and the power of evil in our world, but rather a desire to correctly identify where the evil is at work. We live in a scarred universe, a world that “groans for redemption.” The different exorcisms of the Church’s life of prayer are signs of this struggle within the material universe as well as in the human spirit. They are prayers for liberation in this struggle, appeals, for example, that the [baptismal] power of water – both a threat and a promise – bring life rather than death, that the young Christian be freed from the illusions of evil and be faithful to the light of Christ. The struggle is real, but the first and last word is one of love. The tradition of the Church on the nature of the evil spirits leaves many questions unanswered. But one affirmation is consistently made. They were not originally evil: their condition is the work of their own freedom. They were created in love. They will be, in the end, overcome by love. It would be tragic if one film’s version of the terrors of the evil spirit would cause those most in need of it to forget that first and final word.

[Blizzi]

Good article 🙂

[granville1]

Glad you liked it. Like I say, “America” was “intellectual” and rather more critical and skeptical than some other sources… it’s interesting to see what the Catholic “eggheads” were saying at the time.

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