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As Halloween starts to become a staple in Australian neighbourhoods, for most people its ghosts mean little more than costumes and candy. But from haunted churches to eerie local legends, Halloween says something about us and the way we carry snatches of unresolved history.
The pressure starts to get to Annie when she begins to suspect her mother is haunting her. This exacerbates pre-existing tensions; her husband is caring in a mildly condescending way, but is more concerned with the wellbeing of their children. Is the haunting real, then, or just a symptom of Annie's reluctance to let go?
Fr Frank Brennan's keynote address at the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn Clergy Assembly, St Clement's, Gaylong, on 22 May 2013
'God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,' quips the pastor from the pulpit. The congregation finds this hilarious, but not young gay Christian Ben, who feels secretly shamed. Later, when a string of Christian counselling programs fail to 'heal' his homosexuality, Ben takes to his wrists with a razor blade.
I respect the work of exorcists who offer appropriate pastoral care to those acutely troubled. I also believe it is not generally helpful to give prominence in the churches to demonic possession and exorcism.
The Exorcist upheld an essentially fundamentalist, even romantic vision of religious experience. Its central character was an agnostic Jesuit whose encounters with demonic forces restore his faith. The Last Exorcism substitutes for the jaded Jesuit a troubled Middle American preacher.
Superiority and the benevolence of modern science and the health-care system, versus the cruel, more ancient practice of ostracising the sick from civic life.
Guy Rundle reflects on the lives of James McAuley and Harold Stewart.