"... Participation and Submission to Secondary Evil is Everywhere with Us."

Fr. Longenecker is looking at Hollywood's latest foray into the supernatural:

Deliver Us From Evil is the latest film to deal explicitly with exorcism. Set as a gritty New York crime drama, it is based on the experiences of NYPD cop, Ralph Sarchie. The exorcist is Fr. Mendoza—a young unconventional Jesuit who grapples with Satan and thereby draws Sarchie back to his faith and the young family he was neglecting.

The power and importance of exorcism movies in popular culture is that they make the spiritual struggle. Motion pictures are pictures that move so spiritual subjects are notoriously difficult to translate into cinematic form. For those who do not believe in the Christian sacraments—where the spiritual realm infuses into the physical—exorcism provides the one chilling and convincing evidence of the existence of non physical intelligent beings. As such, exorcism movies make the darkness visible.

What the exorcism films provide is a kind of iconography of evil. The Father Mendoza character in Deliver Us From Evil tells Sarchie that he has witnessed plenty of human evil, but this is “secondary” evil. Fr. Mendoza is going to introduce him to “primary” evil that is pure malevolence. In human evil there is always a mixed motive, so when we see cop Sarchie pound a pedophile murderer to death with his bare fists we understand that he does so in seemingly justified vengeful rage. Fr. Mendoza says the primary evil knows no such rationale.

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Exorcism movies provide a prophetic voice crying in the wilderness. In making the darkness visible they hold up a mirror to our vulnerability and vices as individuals and as a society.

Explicit demon possession is rare, but participation and submission to secondary evil is everywhere with us. In Deliver Us From Evil, the reality of possession by secondary evil is hammered home as the cop’s sidekick jokes about his sexual immorality and has the names of the seven deadly sins tattooed on the back of his neck. He has clearly given himself to secondary evil, and so ends up being one of the demon possessed killer’s victims, while cop Sarchie rediscovers his faith and starts the journey into the light. As a morality tale and warning, the exorcism film delivers a powerful punch and a sobering reminder to be vigilant, for the enemy stalks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

I urge you to read the whole piece.

A quick look at today's headlines is evidence for the abundance of irrational behavior taking place... but is it really irrational?

Fr. Longenecker suggests otherwise.

I believe him.

We should all take his words as warning.

Yes, we honestly should.