The most intriguing aspect of the news that Cardinal Francis George of Chicago appointed an exorcist last year is that the designated devil-hitter priest insists on anonymity. A movie that should be laughed off may now be taken solemnly, if not seriously, by a new audience. That action, intended or not, makes the official church an accessory to the exploitation of every believer by externalizing evil at a moment in which the accurate localization of moral potential and failure within us, instead of outside us, is as important as it has ever been in history.
Evil is a genuine problem.
The technique, of course, is used in the movie based on William Peter Blatty's equally exploitative novel. The head of the pubescent girl, Central Casting's fixed idea of Satan's fixation, spins furiously as a sign, along with projectile vomiting, of the devil's presence. It is our heads that are left spinning by such manipulation of opinion. Ask Attorney General Janet Reno. She must believe in the devil because, no matter where she looks, she finds it almost impossible to identify any responsible moral agent beneath almost any public misdeed connected with the present administration.