I, too, want to say that that was a wonderful post, Gertrude.  

What particularly struck me was the note about abortion.  I've often thought that, but never seen or heard anyone else voicing it.   Everyone I met in the pro-life movement were NO.  While abortion is a most hideous crime that needs to be fought, it is mostly a crime against man, while the NO is a most hideous blasphemy directly against Almighty God.  If they would turn away from the NO, then perhaps the crime of murder would melt away of its own accord, or at least diminish.  I know that's perhaps too simplistic, but we need to get back to worshipping God in the fullest.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of anti-abortion people!

How many future  traditional priests, nuns, or saints have been murdered?

Y'know, I *really* learned a lot from this thread, from everyone, including Gertrude (who I definitely don't agree with on many points). In fact, *especially* Gertrude.

I think the *inordinate* (key word there) focus on abortion in the NOChurch is naturalism at its most subtle, while liturgy is continually abused

Excellent point, several of your points were excellent.

Thank you, I don't remember the last time I learned as much from someone I disagree with (re:Fr. Martin)

And then think about poor Malachi Martin's books, the filth that is described in unnecessary and prurient detail.

Indeed, it is sensationalistic trash.  How can anyone not see that Windswept House is the same as The  Exorcist?  Under the guise of a "religous exposé," what is the audience really tickled by with The Exorcist?  A little girl speaking filthy sex talk.  That is really the secret to its success, the shock value of that.

Yes, people who are possessed really do spew filth just like in the movie.  The difference is that, if you read a Catholic account of an exorcism, it doesn't reveal what they said in perfect detail.  It's filthy, we get the idea.

Windswept House also sold itself with its opening scene of a black Mass.  It isn't as sensationalistic as The Exorcist, but it's clear that it was meant to "move copies" of the book.  Anyone who has the slightest appreciation of how Hollywood works would instantly see this, that the black mass is MM's angle, his "hook."  The book would not have sold a single copy without it, nor would it have been published.  Trust me on that.  

Well, it is not right for a Catholic to compromise in this way, especially if all he is going to do is churn a vague story whose moral is that "Something is wrong in the Vatican."  Like people don't know that already hearing about dozens of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ pedophile priests arrested each month, we need Malachi's cryptic little novel to clue us in?  Sorry -- no.  

If you're going to support this, why not support some kind of Eurotrash horror film that explicitly shows depictions of black masses?  I used to be fooled by these films too, when I was a wannabe filmmaker.  As if God would approve of a film "exposing" witchcraft by showing pornographic scenes of witchcraft and then tacking on a disapproving moral at the end -- that isn't "exposing" witchcraft... That IS witchcraft.  

On the other hand,at least in the US, the use of the Rite of Exorcism had been suppressed along with the graces of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Gone were thousands of nuns and priests.  The seminaries became moral cesspools, Catholic schools and churches closed, abortion legalised, mind controlling TV in every house, drug addiction epidemic, violent crime epidemic--we all know the list of filth thrown in our faces every day. The Catholic clergy scandals alone should tell us that there were lots of possessed priests att large.  The pornography industry is one of the richest in the world.  "Mental illness" touches almost every family.  

Are we supposed to believe in "mental illness" and corporate pharmaceutical "cures"?

Only the Roman Catholic Church has the authority to cast out demons.  The feckless and faithless modernists want everyone to believe that demonic possession is a medieval hoax; nobody is possessed.  They have convinced millions that the aborted babies had no soul, that people should be killed when they become too sick, that cloning is OK.  

Are we going to deny that demonic influences are rampant and that our clergy are not dealing with the problem?

I say let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

 As if God would approve of a film "exposing" witchcraft by showing pornographic scenes of witchcraft and then tacking on a disapproving moral at the end -- that isn't "exposing" witchcraft... That IS witchcraft.  

Even more basically, it IS pornography.

And a bid Amen on the Mel Gibson comment

I don't quite understand what you mean, unless you are a priest?

 My mistake, I forgot you are an ex-Carmelite nun.

Elizabeth,

And what good exactly came from people focusing on diabolical possession?

I am not suggesting there weren't a few conversions, but Medjugore produced some too.

The point is that diabolical possession has always existed, and has never had the primary interest of Christians.  It's always been the concern of a few specialists, at least during healthy periods.  The unhealthy periods were when the Protestant witch-trial mania infected Catholic areas to some degree.

What excited people about Martin's book was the sensationalism of it, the prurient interest it fed, the sense of a sporting contest that he created, in which the Exorcist was risking his own soul to come to the aid of the poor innocent who was possessed.  Those are all worldly motives. (And as I've said, the risk to the soul of the Exorcist is fairy-tale stuff anyway.)

What was the practical benefit?  Nothing.

In 1975, when that book appeared, the crisis in the Church was as dramatic as it ever got, because floods of priests and religious were still apostatising, clown "masses" and such like were proliferating, etc.  Martin noticed none of it, didn't care.  He had more exciting things on his mind, especially making money and presenting his New Age religion of Immanent Jesusism.  

Martin was a dangerous distractor, not a shepherd.

We don't need to worry that we might become possessed.  We need to worry that we might not guard our tongues, our eyes, our thoughts, and that we might offend Almighty God.  To avoid that catastrophe we need His graces, which means we need to live our faith energetically, generously, selflessly.