Recently I watched, for the first time ever, the classic and oft-mocked film The Exorcist. Three things had struck me by the end of the movie. First, and least important, was how superb is its cinematography. At times one could almost believe it was made but a year or two ago, rather than 50 years ago, in 1973. Half a century ago…gosh.
The second, and more important, thing struck me at the very beginning. The first words heard in the film are of what sounds like the Islamic call to prayer, with the leitmotif Muslim cry of Allahu akbar, in the deserts of Iraq. It seems no mere coincidence to me, certainly as seen from the vantage point of 2023, that a serious film about the activity of evil, and in particular demonic possession, should begin with the sounds of Islam in a troubled Muslim nation. The film does not labour the point, so I shall.
There are many agents of evil in the world, most of them unrecognised and so unnamed. Perhaps these are the most dangerous of all. After all, Antichrist is accepted as adopting a pleasant, even humanitarian guise; a wolf in sheep’s—or shepherd’s?—clothing. Sometimes evil can be seen pretty clearly, and when it is seen, the context can lend it a certain, if tenuous, ambiguity which it then exploits. Vladimir Putin is an example, that ardent KGB apparatchik turned fervent waver of Russian Orthodox liturgical candles. That some nations, or more so their leaders, can cheer for Vlad the Invader beggars belief. Vlad’s courting of Iran, and in recent days the terrorists of Hamas, tells one all one needs to know. The cry will come that there is a bigger context in which Vlad must be seen—such as the alleged geopolitical anxiety of Russia contra mundum. That Russia has been consistently contra mundum since 1917, even after the fall of its marxist regime, is also part of the context. Yet, the call for context is not always a call for clarity; sometimes it is a ploy to increase the obscurity surrounding the deeper agenda.
It strains human mental and moral resources not to see in Islam a force for evil, especially in the last half century. Islamists have exported terror on a scale almost unprecedented in history. One might argue, with good reason, that Hitler’s Nazi regime was a greater force for terror. Perhaps indeed. Note that Hitler was able to count Islam among his anti-Jewish allies, with Muslim SS detachments and the vigorous and open support of the grand mufti of Jerusalem. These Muslims were untermensch to Hitler, but they were useful untermensch in that they actively shared the fundamental plank of Nazi ideology: hatred of the Jews.
The Hamas atrocities in Israel on 7 October bring the nature and place of Islam into even sharper relief. We hear loud voices in the West, in our midst and on our streets, that say Hamas was defending the oppressed Palestinians, and so their atrocities were justified, and can even be glorified. The moral depravity of such sentiments aside, it is notable that Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, has declared that Hamas does not represent Palestinians. Of course not; they represent Iran. Gaining power in Gaza by force in 2007, Hamas has used Gaza as a base and a shield in its pursuit of the destruction of Israel. Hamas—which means Islamic Resistance—is opposed by many Muslim states, but more from geopolitical concerns that moral or religious ones.
But Israel has been nasty to Palestinians! they cry. No doubt the Israelis have not always acted with absolute justice, often to the detriment of their own cause. Yet, a country that has had to fight for its existence, an existence mandated by the Western powers, since its very first day, subject to sudden invasions and repeated terror attacks, such a country will be vigorous in its self-defence. Overwhelmingly outnumbered by its surrounding enemies, it has prevailed thus far. That existential insecurity is also part of the context, as is the Holocaust. As is, too, the failure of other Islamic Arab nations to take in Gazan refugees. That is telling. They will use the Palestinians as a geopolitical tool, but they do not want any hint of Hamas in their own countries. Even Qatar, which hosts the multi-millionaire head of Hamas, has not taken in Palestinian refugees. It is not about Palestinians, it is about destroying Israel.
When we hear western idiots claiming to be anti-zionist rather than anti-Jewish, yet who are committing acts of violence and intimidation against Jewish citizens of their own countries, we see the lie unveiled. There is something about the Jewish people that sparks hatred and triggers evil. Perhaps it is their industry, their success, their discipline and commitment to taking responsibility for their own welfare, that trigger the evil of envy. In 75 years they have created in Israel a modern, affluent, and democratic state, without the vast natural resources of their Islamic Arab neighbours. What have these nations done in the same time period? Backward according to almost all accepted Western measures, their people remain in relative poverty, in states that are either non-democratic or only nominally so. Often these nations hate each other nearly as much as they hate Jewish Israel. Their people, seeing Israel’s success, settle on accepting the propaganda that demonizes Israel and lets their own corrupt and grasping leaders off the hook. After all, how brief was the Arab Spring! But hatred of the Jews is abiding, and very convenient.
One can only laugh, a pitying laugh to be fair, when one sees western idiots marching in support of Hamas and its propaganda. Laugh? Because so many of them are the sort of wokester fools who would be imprisoned or executed for blasphemy by the people they are cheering on. That LGBTQ+ activists are prominent among them beggars belief. Strict Islam wants them dead. Indeed, at a recent protest in London, a fool waving the LGBTQ+ flag was chased away by the Muslim protesters. That did not make the news, of course. But it made it to Twitter.
One has no desire to demonise all Muslims in any sort of exercise in simplistic generalisation. They are people too, with human rights. So many of them are decent citizens in their own, and increasingly our, countries. Yet, one cannot accept the facile slogan that Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God. We do not. The allah of Islam is unrecognisable in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; allah is unrecognisable in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament is not accepted in Islam as a cohesive body of divinely-revealed scripture as it is in Judaism and Christianity. Islam quotes bits of the Old Testament to suit its purposes, but its sees the Torah, and what we call the Old Testament, as a comprehensive corruption of the original revelation that they claim to be preserved in Islam. This people of the Book charade blinds us to reality.
So evil and its Prince prosper in our world. Which brings me to the the third striking thing about The Exorcist: its depiction of priests. Frail and human, and prone to doubt and scepticism, yet the priests of The Exorcist (Jesuits, can you believe it!) are also men of faith-in-action, virile in the deeper sense of the world, not concerned with fripperies or fads, but able to perceive and engage the unseen forces of evil in our world, even in affluent Georgetown. Yes, it took the main priest protagonist a while to get there, but in him we see the victory of faith over secular orthodoxy. The movie presented us with priests we can identify with in their humanity, and admire in their faith. That is quite an achievement seen from 2023.
The word is that the making of The Exorcist was plagued with accidents and misfortunes, and strange happenings. Some of the production crew were killed in its making. It is almost as if someone did not want the movie to be made.
All the above seems a world away from the rural concerns of remote Woop Woop Shire. In some sense it is, of course. Yet, like the poor, evil is always with us. Even in the hamlet of Black Stump. Let us pray for priests, and bishops, who can confront it rather than abet it…even out here in the Never Never.
What will I say to the provincial when he calls in a synodal rage after reading this? The poor man still dreams of a mitre, I fear. Who’s going to break the news to him? Not me. It’s hot enough out here as it is.
Time for a tinnie. Cheers!
Father Enda Matether OVS
Pastor, St Nusquam’s
Black Stump, Woop Woop
