Valuing Catholicism
By Antonio Montalvan II
Inquirer

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A DELAYED REACTION THIS IS. LAST WEEK, MY immediate superior in the workplace lent me his copy of the film "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." I had not watched this movie until then, but I did recall the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines publicly recommending it late last year, except that the endorsement was drowned out in the din of the political infighting going on among our ruling elite who, by the way, all claim to be saints.

If you think that the movie is a sequel to the "The Exorcist," William Peter Blatty's unforgettable box-office hit some years back, it is not. Emily Rose, I should say, is a much more powerful movie. But it does not dwell too much on gory demonic possession scenes, deviating from a trend that used to characterize films of the same genre. Its simple message is one that confronts what is rather an increasingly disconcerting subject to many people today -- faith in God. Let's face it. Our disbelieving generation no longer believes in demons.

The film is based on a true-to-life story. Emily Rose was a 19-year-old freshman who grew up in a devout Catholic family. The ordeal she experienced with six demons who possessed her began one quiet night in the college dorm where she was staying for university studies. She was not the type who would indulge in drugs; she was never into hallucinogens. She actually lived a clean life as a young Catholic girl who was not ashamed to practice her faith.

She had been weakened by the vicious, demonic attacks that incessantly haunted her when the family finally decided to bring her home and seek the counsel of Fr. Richard Moore. The priest knew the gravity of his parishioner's condition. His first response was to make a thorough review of the Roman Catholic manual that prescribes the rites of exorcism.

As the days went by, the demonic attacks became more frequent, persistent and even more ferocious. Unknown to the priest, Emily Rose had been attended to by a school neurologist, and then by a psychiatrist, who both treated her as afflicted with a "rare" case of epilepsy that "degenerated" into psychosis. In truth, the drug she was administered with only served to narcotize her brain and contributed to her aggravation, which eventually killed her. Father Moore insisted that the case was spiritual, not scientific. The state blamed Emily Rose's death on the priest and charged him with "negligent homicide."

The riveting trial scenes that follow play on our minds in many ways. A lawyer known for being a "man of faith" represents the prosecution. On the other hand, Father Moore is represented by a woman lawyer who openly admits she is agnostic. ("Aren't we all?" she says.)

The binary opposites seem to recall our own real-life struggles between science and faith. Science gives us the facts. Inversely, faith is seen as only a realm of possibilities, which dismisses demonic possession and exorcism as "archaic, irrational superstition." The prosecution lawyer often sneers at the priest for his "medieval" thinking. Even the priest's own archdiocese refuses to be dragged into the case, for fear of being labeled as "medieval."

A dramatic point of the movie comes with the testimony of an expert witness for the defense, an anthropologist who is an authority on the cross-cultural phenomenon of demonic possession. Although rare, "demonic possession is a cultural universal," she testifies.

Being an anthropologist myself, I easily identified with her testimony. Despite our fixation on modernity, anthropology continues to be perceived as an "exotic" discipline, driven only by "unscientific thought and non-statistical data," in a silly world that has made a god out of numbers-numbers that do not have faces, let alone feelings.

"Emily Rose" has other more important parallels. Father Moore's charity and dedication, his fealty to Church doctrine, above all his heroic faith in the face of persecution, only bring to mind the quality of many of our Catholic presbyters. Would that our parish priests of today be of the same cut as Father Moore. Many of our parish priests behave like little mayors and are consumed by the temporal powers of their office. It is no secret that many are driven by ambitions to become bishops. Humility no longer seems to be the mark of many of them. Perhaps, a good number of them no longer profess loyalty to the Pope. I would like to think that many of our priests today are the ones who are pushing us to our very own "faithlessness."

On the eve of her death, Emily Rose went through an out-of-body experience where she was favored with an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When she asked her why she was being made to suffer a terrible ordeal, Mary told her that God allowed her trial to show the power of good over evil. She was made to choose between leaving her earthly life or going back to her body and accept the divine purpose that her fate had been irreconcilably assigned to; nobody believed in demons anymore; her role was to bring our faith back to its senses. She chose to go back. The next day, God took away her life.

"I would like to believe that she was a saint," Father Moore says at the trial. Today, the many who visit Emily Rose's grave do not miss out the epitaph that she had personally chosen: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."

I am not trying to stand tall, but the fact is, many of us refuse to admit we are sinners.

Comments to monta@cu-cdo.edu.ph

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