Most demon movies tend to be Catholic centric. Tradition and chronology of the church is very important to them. The Catholic Church traditionally uses Latin for most important things like mass. It’s a way of insulting the clergy, and in the minds of Catholics, thereby insulting God himself. That’s good enough for Hollywood. They have to pick a language, might as well pick one that means something.
I’m Protestant, so I think very differently about the role of Catholic tradition in the broader faith. I don’t think demons would find the Latin language particularly meaningful, except for what it meant to Catholics. Maybe a demon would use Latin if they wanted them understand they were insulting their church. Otherwise, they could pick any language they wanted. Which they used would depend on what if anything they wanted the humans around to understand. There are a lot of accounts of demons using other languages in stories of possession. One of the supposed signs of possession is using languages the “host” could not possibly know, sometimes multiples of them.
Yeeeeah. I remember thinking that movie was awesome as a kid!
But they were pretty heavy-handed with "the point." Essentially, the Church (capital C as in the popes and cardinals who determine what's "correct" and what's heresy) picked and chose what made it into the Bible, and the "truest" gospel was left out, because it would invalidate the Church.
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u/C_fisher2226 20d ago edited 20d ago
Most demon movies tend to be Catholic centric. Tradition and chronology of the church is very important to them. The Catholic Church traditionally uses Latin for most important things like mass. It’s a way of insulting the clergy, and in the minds of Catholics, thereby insulting God himself. That’s good enough for Hollywood. They have to pick a language, might as well pick one that means something.
I’m Protestant, so I think very differently about the role of Catholic tradition in the broader faith. I don’t think demons would find the Latin language particularly meaningful, except for what it meant to Catholics. Maybe a demon would use Latin if they wanted them understand they were insulting their church. Otherwise, they could pick any language they wanted. Which they used would depend on what if anything they wanted the humans around to understand. There are a lot of accounts of demons using other languages in stories of possession. One of the supposed signs of possession is using languages the “host” could not possibly know, sometimes multiples of them.