Content Warning: SA Themes

A piece of highly popular secular art, produced by a progressive Catholic and a one-time agnostic, appeared almost 50 years ago.

Many Catholics now love the message behind the movie (even if they’re still suspicious of its execution).

The Catholic Church comes off pretty good in it, actually. A pugilist priest and “Indiana Jones”-style cleric wage spiritual warfare to fight Pazuzu’s possession of a little girl.

This is the kind of “spiritual warfare” hardcore Catholics should love (self sacrificing, considerate of others, etc.) rather than the performative, chest-thumping intimidation they often employ.

If that film was made truthfully today, her abuser wouldn’t be some made-up deity. They’d be the priests themselves. That would definitively explain all of her acting out (which many survivors of her type display).

The real living, breathing horror movie is the power authoritarian religions still wield to commit their various transgressions and what their adherents will cover up, minimize, and deny to hold on to it.