On the subway, her arms are stretched wide as her blouse and back are torn to ribbens by an invisible whip. While at a dance club, lacerations appear on her forehead. Later, her feet are beaten bloody. Houseman and Kiernan get into a fistfight. After Cardinal Houseman tries to strangle the devil out of Frankie, fire leaps from a hearth and engulfs the room.
Priests drink wine.
Beyond assaulting viewers with blood and physical anguish, the movie is theologically muddled and misleading. Its main characters are either confused, corrupt or channels of demonic possession. Unlike '70s predecessors such as The Exorcist, The Omen and Rosemary's Baby , it's not clearly the devil responsible for selfishly inflicting terrible pain on the protagonist. In fact, Stigmata implies that it's actually God using a dead priest's soul and a young woman's body to communicate a holy truth that somehow fell through the cracks when the Bible was compiled. A false doctrine.