The Exorcist is a Catholic Movie of Demonic Possession

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At first, it may seem strange to call The Exorcist a Catholic movie. It’s all about demonic possession, it has some pretty grotesque imagery, and one of its main characters is a priest who has lost his faith. How could a story like this possibly be Catholic? (Note: This article contains spoilers for The Exorcist.)

Quite easily, actually. See, for a story to be truly Catholic, it doesn’t just have to be about a bunch of good people sitting around being good to each other. In fact, if that is all you have, then you do not have much of a story at all. Every good story has its villains and obstacles for the protagonists to overcome, and The Exorcist is no different.

The film does not intend to shock, disgust, or offend simply for its own sake. Rather, it uses its more unsavory elements to craft a tale about mankind’s ongoing struggle with the devil and to unmask the face of evil and show it for what it truly is. In doing so, it exemplifies several important truths about God and our faith, so it is one of the few Hollywood films that hold up our Church as an important force for good in our society.

And how exactly does it do this? Let’s look at each of these seemingly unappealing elements one by one and find out how they come together to create a truly Catholic story.

A Story about Demons

We can begin with the demonic plotline. If stories about demons were unCatholic, then we would have to remove every one of Jesus’ exorcisms from the Gospels, and we would have to take out portions of Job and Revelation as well. Scripture is full of stories involving demons, so the mere fact that The Exorcist is about demonic possession does not automatically make it unCatholic.

Rather, we have to ask how the film uses this demonic element. Does it try to glorify demons and make them seem cool, or does it use them to unmask the truth about evil? There are some horror movies that do the former, but this isn’t one of them. The Exorcist shows in no uncertain terms that demons are evil, and the whole point of the story is that the main character Regan’s possession is a bad thing. It portrays the devil as a villain to be overcome, and that is exactly how a Catholic story should portray him and his minions.

The Truth about Demons

In fact, if we really pay attention to the demonic elements in the movie, we can see that it actually presents some key truths about the supernatural world that people today would do well to keep in mind. First, Regan’s demonic possession isn’t just a random event. Towards the beginning of the film, she says that she has been using a ouija board to communicate with a spirit, and that ultimately leads to her affliction. This is a very Catholic plot point, as our faith teaches that dabbling in the occult opens us up to demons.

Secondly, Regan’s mother spends a significant portion of the movie trying to figure out what is wrong with her daughter. She has doctors run all sorts of tests on Regan, but they can’t find anything wrong with her. In the end, they admit that they can’t help her, and they suggest that she try exorcism. They do not believe in demonic possession, but they say that exorcism sometimes works by the power of suggestion, and that might be just what Regan needs.

In the end, though, we find that demons really do exist and that Regan really was possessed. In this way, the film makes a very important point about the limits of science: the supernatural world is real, and not everything we experience is explicable by natural means. And once again, this is exactly what our faith teaches. While the culture around us may mock our belief in possession, exorcism, and the supernatural, we know that these things are in fact real. We know that spiritual beings like angels and demons do exist, and when they act, science is often at a loss to explain their effects.

Grotesque Imagery

Next, let’s take a look at the grotesque imagery in the film. This is probably the hardest of our three elements to justify, but I would suggest that it is still within the bounds of legitimate Catholic storytelling. The key here is to ascertain the purpose of the imagery. If a movie is violent and disgusting simply for its own sake, that can be problematic. However, if there is a real narrative purpose to it, then it can be legitimate.

Take The Passion of the Christ, for example. That is a very bloody, violent movie, but those elements serve a narrative purpose. It is all done to show just how much Jesus suffered for us. Similarly, the grotesque imagery in The Exorcist also serves a narrative purpose. The film uses this imagery to show just how evil the demon is, and that makes all the difference.

A Faithless Priest

Finally, we have the priest, Fr. Damien Karras, who has pretty much lost his faith entirely. As paradoxical as it may seem at first, his character arc is arguably the most Catholic element of the whole movie. When Regan’s mother asks him about exorcism, he is shocked and says that he knows nothing about it, but he agrees to look into her daughter’s case nonetheless.

His examination takes some time, but he eventually finds enough signs of possession to recommend an exorcism to his bishop even though he personally has trouble believing in the possibility of demonic activity. The bishop chooses an experienced exorcist, Fr. Lankester Merrin, to perform the ritual, and he allows Fr. Karras to assist.

When Fr. Merrin arrives, he begins the exorcism right away, and he soon dismisses Fr. Karras for failing to ignore the demon’s psychological attacks on them. He continues the exorcism alone, but Fr. Karras decides to return to Regan’s room a little while later. He finds that Fr. Merrin has had a heart attack, and after failing to revive the dead priest, he does the only thing he can think of to save Regan. He tells the demon to leave her and possess him instead, and when it complies, he jumps out of the window to avoid hurting the girl.

He falls down a large staircase, and as he is lying on the street about to die, another priest finds him and hears his last confession. This allows Fr. Karras to die in a state of grace, thereby completing a redemptive journey that exemplifies what the Catholic faith is all about. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and that is exactly what he did to Fr. Karras through Regan’s possession. God used this terrible situation to bring a lost disciple back to him, embodying the entire purpose of our faith in this one character.

A Catholic Movie

Once we understand how all of these different elements function in the narrative, it is clear that The Exorcist is in fact a Catholic movie. Like all possession films, it takes some artistic liberties with the details of possession and exorcism, but it gets the faith right when it matters most. It boldly proclaims some very important truths about the dangers of the occult and the reality of the spiritual realm, and it tells a very touching story about God’s power to use any evil, even possession and failed exorcism, to bring about the salvation of his lost children.

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1 thought on “The Exorcist is a Catholic Movie of Demonic Possession”

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