Several years ago I set out to write a novel that would, not only excite and entertain (sermons that put one to sleep are useless), but would also make a positive statement about God, the human condition and the relationship between the two. On its crudest level it would argue for transcendence by presenting supernatural forces as real; but on the level that would stay with the reader long after he had closed the book, the theme was something other—and deeper. At the end of The Exorcist, the mother can believe in the devil because “he keeps doing all those commercials”; but Dyer responds: “Then how do you account for all of the good?” And that is the question that my novel and film implicitly ask: namely, if the universe is clockwork and man is no more than molecular structures, how is it there is love as a God would love and that a man like Jesuit Damien Karras would deliberately give up his life for a stranger, the alien corpus of Regan MacNeil? This is surely an enigma far more puzzling and far more worth pondering than the scandalous problem of evil; this is the mystery of goodness. It is the point all critics miss.
Your issue on The Exorcist was fine. Fr. Robert Boyle's insight into the fact that both novel and film derive much of their “harrowing impact from the refusal to analyze openly” is almost astounding in its penetration to the author's intent. Fr. Robert Lauder makes impeccable distinctions. And Moira Walsh, alas, is discerning when noting that critics of the film base their judgements on “mutually contradictory” reasons. Dominican Richard Woods, for example, attacked the film in Time because “The devil's true work is temptation…. That is almost entirely missing from the movie. The devil in the movie was an easy devil to handle.” And the following week, Fr. Woods' colleague at Loyola of Chicago—Maryknoll psychologist Eugene Kennedy—put down the film because “the battle between good and evil is not fought out on the level of demonology. Being a Christian...means coming to terms with our own capacity for evil, not projecting it on an outside force that possesses us.” Or tempts us, I presume.
Such contradictions, when taken alone, are a source of bemusement and of wonder. But I am truly dismayed at the misconceptions held, not only by critics, but also defenders of the novel and film. And when I see that they are Jesuits, whom I thanked on the acknowledgement page of my novel for “teaching me to think,” I can only conclude that the fault must be mine, and that what I thought obvious, was not. The “fierce” opposition of America's editor to explanations by “interested parties” has been duly noted; but perhaps his recognition of the “mystery of goodness” theme in the work has tamed him some. Perhaps just a bit. We do not ask miracles (not today). But may I clear up one or two of the misconceptions and make an occasional mild riposte?
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