'The Exorcist' turns 50 -- Visions of hell, in defense of beliefs about heaven

William Peter Blatty was pounding out the first pages of "The Exorcist" when his telephone rang -- bringing the news that his mother had died.

The screenwriter was already digging into dark material that was completely different from the whimsical work -- such as the classic "A Shot in the Dark" Pink Panther script -- that established his Hollywood career. He was writing a fictional take on an exorcism case he heard discussed during his Georgetown University studies.

But the death of Blatty's Lebanese-born, fervently Catholic mother changed everything. She spoke very little English and called her son "Il Waheed," Arabic for "the one" or "the only." He struggled with grief for five years and his supernatural thriller turned into something much more ambitious.

"I wanted to write about good and evil and the unseen world all around us. I wanted to make a statement that the grave is not the end, that there is more to life than death," said Blatty, meeting in a diner near the Georgetown neighborhood described in "The Exorcist."

It was 2013, four years before Blatty's death, and our conversation focused on the 40th anniversary of the film that brought him an Academy Award, for adopting his novel for the big screen. Now, on the 50th anniversary of "The Exorcist," critics are still debating why it had such as seismic impact.

Blatty insisted, many times, that he wasn't trying to shock people, even though the R-rated classic sent many rushing for theater exits, sickened by its stomach-wrenching visions. His goal was "apostolic, from the beginning," an attempt to inspire faith and defend core Christian doctrines, he said.

The equation was simple: "If demons are real, why not angels? If angels are real, why not souls? And if souls are real, what about your own soul? … And, by the way, if incarnate evil is real, what are you going to do about that?"

"The Exorcist" set box-office records for horror films, with numbers that soared with subsequent re-releases. At the same time, Blatty was deeply satisfied to hear priests report that, in the weeks after the movie opened, penitents lined up for confession.

The future Pope Benedict XVI was concerned about modern Europe -- for decades

In a rite before the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Vatican officials placed unique symbols of his pontificate inside his cypress casket, along with a scroll in Latin describing his ascent to the Chair of St. Peter.

"His faith and family upbringing prepared him for the harsh experience of the problems connected with the Nazi regime, aware of the climate of strong hostility towards the Catholic Church," said the English translation of this "rogito," or deed. "In this complex situation, he discovered the beauty and truth of faith in Christ."

After deserting the German army without firing a shot, Josef Ratzinger began his theology studies and, in 1951, was ordained a priest. He emerged as an intellectual voice preaching hope, as opposed to mere optimism. The future pope's sobering views on modern Europe would affect his entire career -- as well as debates about his legacy when he died.

"This so-called Christian Europe … has become the birthplace of a new paganism, which is growing steadily in the heart of the Church, and threatens to undermine her from within," said Ratzinger, in a 1958 lecture. This modern church "is no longer, as she once was, a Church composed of pagans who have become Christians, but a Church of pagans, who still call themselves Christians."

Four years later, the 35-year-old priest advised Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne during the historic Second Vatican Council, emerging as a "progressive" on reform issues, yet one who saw painful challenges ahead.

"From the crisis of today the church of tomorrow will emerge – a church that has lost much," he warned, on German radio in 1969. "As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members."

Ratzinger envisioned a "more spiritual church" with no political mandate, "flirting as little with the left as with the right. … It will make her poor and cause her to become the church of the meek."

These words grew in importance when he became an archbishop in 1977 and then a cardinal. Later, Pope John Paul II made him prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where his orthodoxy inspired liberals to pin a "God's Rottweiler" label on the bookish, even shy theologian.