The Case Against Satan (15 page)

“Gregory? Merry Christmas, my boy.”

“Thank you, Your Excellency. A Merry Christmas to you.”

“How are you getting along at St. Michael's?”

“Pretty well. I'm on Mrs. Barlow's permanent guest list.”

“Then you
have
made progress!” The Bishop chuckled.

“Yes. I should have that report ready for you soon, by the way. My notes are almost complete.”

“Fine. Take your time.”

“I talked to Susan on the phone just now. She sounds happy. I also talked to Father Halloran.”

“And did he sound—happy?”

“I know what you mean, Your Excellency, and I really can't say for certain, but I believe he's at least succeeded in burying those misgivings of his in a corner of his mind. I doubt if he will ever lose them entirely—that's a little too much to ask.”

“I doubt if any of us will lose them entirely, my boy. Father Halloran planted a very disturbing seed in the minds of all of us that awful night. That a priest might violate the confessional
unconsciously
 . . . that all of us are capable of such violation . . . how can any sensible man deny the possibility?”

“I suddenly recall a dream,” said Gregory. “A dream I had during the time of all this dreadful business, a ridiculous dream in which I seemed to be telling myself that damnation is not restricted to the perpetrators of evil deeds; that he who in his heart—or in his soul or in the labyrinth of his unconscious—desires an evil deed to come to pass is equally guilty, equally damned. Theologically, this is cant, I know. But it sticks in the mind.”

“Exactly. But I pray, Gregory. I pray for Father Halloran. I pray for us all.”

There was an awkward silence, then Gregory said, “I talked to my brother-in-law a moment ago also.”

“Your brother-in-law? . . .”

“The psychiatrist.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

“And a rather odd thing happened.” Gregory briefly recounted the telephone conversation.

“Yes, Gregory, go on,” said the Bishop.

“I wonder if you might tell me something, Your Excellency.”

“If I can.”

“I can explain every strange thing that happened here in September,” said Gregory, slowly and thoughtfully. “Explain it naturally, I mean. The cross burning Susan's arm? Psychosoma. The possession itself? Madness. The strange voice she used and the way she talked? Simply the method in her madness, a deception based on things she'd read and memorized—for, after all, she's a bright girl. The illusion of knowing who was knocking at the door? Pure bluff, perhaps—she said no actual name, and maybe the entire accusation of her father was false. The way we apparently cured her? Who knows: some kind of catharsis due to shock—cruder things have cured disturbed minds, and perhaps she's not really cured at all. And finally—the impressive storm we were treated to.
Deliver us from the devil's tyranny with great show
—is that the explanation? Or was it coincidence, even though the newspapers didn't predict it—the weather man has been wrong before!” He paused; then went on.

“And yet, although the literal mind can explain every one of these things in natural terms, I told my brother-in-law she was possessed. That must mean I believe!”

Softly, the Bishop said, “I've wanted to hear that, my boy. I've been waiting to hear it.”

“I must believe,” Gregory repeated. “Do you understand? I must believe the Devil himself was in that girl and that we routed him.
None
of the evidence is unequivocably supernatural, and yet I believe it was.
Why
do I believe, then, I who doubted?”

The Bishop said, “I wouldn't worry about it too much, Gregory. Accept it. It's a difficult question to answer offhand. Perhaps you really believed all the time.”

“Would I have argued and hesitated and gotten you so angry with me if I had believed all the time?”

“Probably not. But, as I say, don't let it worry you. When you come right down to it, you may already know the answer.”

“Already know it?”

“Yes. You may have known the answer some time ago and written it down, without fully knowing then what it meant. And perhaps I didn't know what it meant, either. Until now.”

“What
what
meant?” asked Gregory.

“‘The Hand of God is quicker than the eye,'” said the Bishop. “Much quicker.” The conversation ended with a series of pleasant, seasonal trivialities. His Excellency hung up.

He walked to a window and watched the snow for a while. Then, although he had not spoken Gaelic since the days of his childhood, a door in his mind that had been closed for many years opened just long enough for his mouth to silently form the almost forgotten words
Buiochas le Dia
. Thank God.

Some of the incidents and inferences in this story may seem of a sensational nature. They are not, however, inventions of the author. A few readers—particularly non-Catholic readers—might ponder Father Sargent's indulgent attitude toward Freudian analysis and think it contrary to official Catholic opinion. These readers need only be reminded of William J. Devlin, S.J., M.D., of Chicago's Loyola University (mentioned briefly in the story), a Catholic priest and doctor who is also a Freudian therapist who has said, “Freud had the right idea operationally.” In this connection, it is interesting to quote from the book
God and Freud
by Leonard Gross (New York, 1959): “. . . Many Catholics still believe that psychiatry is a detour a sinner can take to avoid the consequences of his acts. Priests who know better deplore this tendency . . .”

Father Sargent's alcoholism may be offensive to many readers, despite the fact that “whiskey priests” are not new to fiction (the protagonist of Graham Greene's greatest novel,
The Power and the Glory
, is a priest who drinks to excess, and Mr. Greene is a Catholic). The attention of such readers is directed to Father Ralph Pfau, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, whose struggle with liquor is recorded in his engrossing and instructive book,
Prodigal Shepherd
(New York, 1958).

The revelation, during the exorcism, of possible incest may strike some readers as gratuitously lurid. But this element, repulsive though it may be, is only one of several elements lifted almost bodily from the account of a 1928 exorcism in Earling, Iowa, documented in a Catholic booklet entitled
Begone Satan!
(English from German, Rev. Carl Vogl; tr. Rev. Celestine Kapsner, O.S.B.;
Collegeville, Minnesota, 1935, under Imprimatur of Jos. F. Busch, Bishop of St. Cloud).

All the “documentation” notwithstanding, this book is a work of fiction, its characters and incidents imaginary and not intended to depict actual persons or events.

The following, however, is not fiction:

While I was working on Chapter XIII, in which the exorcism ritual culminates in the words “Begone, Satan!” I was annoyed by the sudden appearance in my study of a large horsefly, almost the size of a bee, which buzzed about my head and kept me from working. It was not yet “fly weather” and, in addition, my windows were tightly closed. I was forced to interrupt the writing of the chapter, roll up a newspaper, and take time out to kill the intruder. Settling down to resume work, I had scarcely typed a half dozen more lines of the ritual when I was “attacked” by a second fly of the same size. Stopping work again, I killed the pest as I had killed the first. There were to be four such flies in all, each presenting itself only after the preceding fly had been killed. The flies stopped coming after I had typed the words of exorcism, “Begone, Satan!”

The bothersome interlude amused me when it was over, but upon leaving my study after completing the chapter, I confess to experiencing an instant of superstitious fear: for suddenly I remembered a piece of information I had learned years before but had forgotten until that moment. Beelzebub is the name of Lucifer's lieutenant. The name Beelzebub, in Hebrew, means
Lord of the Flies
.

Ray
Russell

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