The Pope's Exorcist

[ChildOfGod]

"The Pope's Exorcist" is a movie that's now on Netflix starring Russel Crowe which I watched on a whim having run out of personal A-List movies. I thought of this as a B-List movie and was expecting a cheap horror flick with some twisted Christian references. MAN... was I pleasantly surprised. This was a pro-faith film with some real nuggets applicable to the Christian life, and seemed above respectful to the Christian point of view. It gave me pause about my own "acceptable sins" and made want to walk in Christ's light more. I don't think I can say that about too many other films this year. I might have been in just the right head space to receive the film in this way - I'd been watching some pretty dark stuff that I probably shouldn't - but maybe any Christian can appreciate the film. I recommend it, if it appeals to you at all. All the best.

[sweetandsour]

I'll try to watch the movie, but I don't know. But I did read through the small book, "The Pope's Exorcist, 101 Questions about Fr. Gabriele Amorth", published by Sophia Institute Press, which was somewhat interesting.

[Del]

Fr. Gabriele Amorth was a real priest and exorcist. His public revelation of his work in books and interviews made quite a splash in Catholic media a few years ago. I was surprised that a movie about him did not get much attention on our Catholic talk radio network.

Here's the Wikipedia article on the movie. I can understand now why the Hollywood treatment did not impress the faithful Catholic audience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope's_Exorcist

From CoG's review, it sounds like the movie was entertaining and thought-provoking. I'll ask Pipeson if it is available on any of his streaming services.

But there are some glaring Hollywood errors in the plot summary in the link.
- A Catholic exorcist always works with a team of holy prayer warriors. They protect and strengthen the exorcist with prayers. Help restrain the patient when the demon gets violent. And they don't freak out when the demon manifests frightening phenomena. They are prepared as the demon tempts them with memories of their own sins, even ones that were repented and confessed long ago. This is really the demons' most effective trick.
- A Catholic exorcist does not deal, bargain, or engage in conversation with demons. The notion that a priest would invite a demon to leave the patient and possess himself is pure Hollywood. Likewise, it is Hollywood fantasy that a demon can be defeated by compelling it to enter a pig and then killing the pig.
- A map of sites infested by demons, hidden since the Spanish Inquisition? Pure Hollywood fantasy.

On the other hand, if a Hollywood thriller invites viewers to encounter real evil and honest discussions of sin, repentance, and forgiveness -- it could be a good thing.

Always fun to watch Russell Crowe. And I like a good horror film, especially when it is based on decent theology like The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

More recently, the low-budget Nefarious was quite good.