[Magdalen] The Exorcist at Ascension Chicago

[Grace Cangialosi]

This is reminding me of an episode of "Nothing Sacred," an unfortunately
short-lived TV series back in the '90s. It was about a Roman Catholic
parish in the inner city with a young pastor who had been a rock musician
in his younger years and was now very much an activist, very much involved
in the life of the neighborhood.  One episode was about a movie company
coming in to use the church for filming. There was much discussion among
the staff about the appropriateness of this, but the income from it was
much needed, so they finally decided it would be all right. As it turned
out, however, the film was to include some disturbing and even Satanic
material, and during the filming of one such scene the priest walked in and
went ballistic, throwing them all out.

That series didn't last very long, thank to protests by a number of
conservative Catholics and even Evangelicals--I think only 9 of the
originally planned thrteen episodes ever aired. I taped many of them; I
thought they were very well done and addressed some important issues.
There was an especially powerful one set around Hallowe'en.  The church had
a tradition of having a huge bonfire at the end of the evening, and a
senior priest proclaiming the prayer commonly known as "St. Patrick's
Breastplate." It was powerful, and I still pull it out and watch it every
once in awhile..

On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 7:09 PM, Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The first scenes filmed at our church premises will be seen in this
> Friday night's episode of the Fox network's The Exorcist. They've been
> back three further times to film there. Geena Davis was on location
> last time (at least)! Their trailers took up a whole block of Clark
> Street.
>
> We've been assured the scenes at Ascension are not of the ghastly
> disturbing kind. Just ominous, I think. I think the current clip shows
> a nun being punched (by someone prompted by a demon, no doubt).
>
> News of the filmings has been included in our weekly email blast, but
> we're not organizing Exorcist-watching parties or putting up
> projection TV setups in the parish hall. Folks can find and watch it
> on their own, or not. I don't think the newsletter has even included
> times and channels. Those who want to will find it; those who don't
> needn't feel we're all getting on a bandwagon to push demonic
> blood-and-barf (and worse) imagery on everyone. A staff member asked
> if there was blood and vomit in the show. I said "It's The Exorcist.
> There's pee as well." He said, "Ew." I left out the removal of a
> crawly...never mind.
>
> We did provide the parish hall for the crew's breakfast and lunch
> breaks. And we're getting paid every time they film at the church, of
> course, so that's helping with some budget issues.
>
> --
> Scott R. Knitter
> Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA
>



-- 
Grace Cangialosi
Ruckersville, VA

*"Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great
love."*
*St. Teresa of Calcutta*