MovieChat Forums > Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) Discussion > The Guilt of Father Francis

The Guilt of Father Francis

posted 8 years ago by ChillerPop
2 replies | jump to latest

The more I watch this movie, the more I grow to really like it.

There's a lot going on in Fr. Francis' speech by Cheche's bedside, and it makes the viewer think a little.

I didn't realize that what he heard in his mind was "sua culpa sua culpa" until I researched it. But what is Fr. Francis's fault?

Is it all there in his speech about how precious an innocent Cheche is and how he's going to save his soul? Is Francis just amazingly naive? Is his sin pride that he's going to save "the natives" from their barbarous non-Christian ways? That he doesn't recognize what colonialism is doing all around him?

And did the demon play with his head the way it played with Merrin's (the Nazi Germany revision) or with the doctor's? (Meaning, at that moment, did it telepathically offer Francis a facile, empty redemption, puffing him up full of shallow faith, so that it could then bring him low with a "keep that filthy cross away from me, priest!)

[–] bastasch8647 8 years ago

I don't think Francis was offered redemption by the demon because the demon seemed satisfied to have "guilted" Francis with the "sua culpa". Yes, I think Francis was naive in giving "Che Che's" apparent telepathy a high spiritual meaning. The demon was knowledgeable about Merrin's inner life and sins, so it probably had an inkling about bothersome things in Francis' unconscious, and then it simply pounced on the young priest's sense (valid or not) of guilt...

[–] vicky_lc2001 (1907) 6 years ago

Fr. Francis guilt is the death of the young girl, maybe even his students as well. He tells Merrin this that it was his suggestion to call the British soldiers.

The young priest may have been naive but it makes sense for him to assume that the miracle of Cheche was from God. Plus he was in a lot of despair after everything that has happened and he was vulnerable to hoping and wanting God to intervene with the madness that was surrounding him. A madness that he couldn't comprehend, they have yet to see a blatant unexplainable supernatural element to what was happening until Cheche's seemingly miraculous arm healing. Last, Cheche was special needs and was an innocent like a child, so at that moment he could not comprehend Cheche not being what he assumed him to be.