“When we jeer at  
the Devil and tell  
ourselves that he  
does not exist,  
that is when he  
is happiest.”
Gabriele Amorth

I was nineteen years old in December 1973 when the movie, The Exorcist, was released in San Francisco. Like so many others, a friend and I went to see the movie at the Northpoint Theater, not fully prepared for what we were about to experience.

I was born and raised Catholic. I attended St. Gabriel Elementary School and St. Ignatius College Preparatory, a Jesuit high school in San Francisco, where theology was an integral part of the curriculum. We studied Scripture, morality, Church history, and the teachings of Jesus. Yet never, at any level, do I recall anyone discussing demons, demonic possession, or exorcisms. Then came The Exorcist.

The movie was terrifying, not simply because of its disturbing images, but because it portrayed something supposedly rooted in the religious tradition in which I had been raised. Was this really part of Catholicism? If so, why had nobody ever mentioned it?

Thirty-eight years later, in 2011, those same questions resurfaced when I attended a special screening of The Rite, starring Anthony Hopkins, at a theater in Campbell, California. The film was inspired by the real-life experiences of Father Gary Thomas, a Roman Catholic priest from Saratoga. I’ve known Gary for many years. In 2005, the bishop of the Diocese of San José had sent him to Rome to attend a Vatican-sponsored course on exorcism and apprentice with an experienced exorcist.

Father Gary himself attended the screening at the theater. Afterward, he spent approximately ninety minutes answering questions from the audience. What he shared was distressing, especially with the images from the movie still fresh in my mind. This wasn’t Hollywood fiction being discussed. Here was a real Catholic priest, speaking calmly and seriously about real experiences I could neither comprehend nor explain.

One observation has remained with me for fifteen years. Paraphrasing his words, Gary said, The greatest accomplishment of the devil is convincing people that he does not exist. I’ve thought about this statement for many years.

Today, more than half a century after seeing The Exorcist, my faith in God remains strong. My faith in the Catholic Church as an institution, particularly at the local level, has been challenged. I’ve learned that faith in God and confidence in religious institutions are not necessarily the same thing. I’ve also learned that growing older doesn’t automatically mean understanding more. Sometimes it simply means becoming more comfortable acknowledging how much I still don’t know or understand.

Does the devil exist? Is evil something more than the destructive choices human beings make? I don’t pretend to know. What I do know is that faith does not require me to have all the answers. Perhaps it simply asks me to remain open to the questions.