The Catholic Church is one of the most powerful institutions in human history. From their influence in power and politics, to their complicated relations with various minority groups, to even their perspectives on the afterlife, it’s clear that many individuals have drawn both inspiration and criticism from the church. Even so, there’s no doubt that it also has a horrific history of abuse, murder, and supernatural rituals that have fueled writers’ imaginations for centuries.

As you may or may not know, the Catholic Church has had a long, dark history of abuse within its ranks. It’s particularly infamous for its various cover-ups and allegations. Many of those who were abused were children, most of whom were adolescents. This abuse was so prevalent that it even became the subject matter of Brian O’Hare’s Fallen Men. Only recently has any of the abuse gotten attention. While the media started paying attention to it around the 1980s, the abuse began receiving more and more attention in the early 2000s. Many documentaries, such as Suffer the Children, have been made in order to showcase these abuse cases.

The Catholic Church has also had a hand in the murder of innocents. From the Jews in the Rhineland, to the massacres of the European Witch Trials, the Catholic Church has had a hand in some of the most infamous incidents in history. During the First Crusade of 1096, the Church had staged a war to take back the Holy Land from the Muslims. However, many religious zealots had acquired a bloodlust that led to the destruction of many Jewish communities. During the 14th-16th centuries, the Church had endorsed the burning of supposed witches in order to relieve their anxieties about the end of the world, alongside any moral responsibility they may have felt towards marginalized groups. Even in the 20th century, the church had been criticized for its supposedly indifferent policies towards Nazi Germany, as well as turning a blind eye to the suffering of the Jews. In fact, this attitude became so prevalent that in 1998 Pope John Paul II had to apologize for the church’s actions and indifference towards Jewish suffering.

However, what many horror writers have used are the exorcisms and demons that are shown throughout literature. It’s been the subject matter of many works such as Dante’s Inferno, Lincoln Cole’s Raven’s Peak, and James Wan’s The Conjuring. In fact, I myself have often been fascinated by these creatures. Depicted as otherworldly within glass stained windows, these creatures have often been used to showcase the traditional fight of good and evil. Exorcisms were often performed to try to remove demons from fellow church members, many of which have often taken a frightening turn.

Even now, the Catholic Church is still regarded as a major social institution, though they’re struggling to amend their mistakes. They’ve taken to promoting various social justices, as well as taking more serious measures towards abuse. What’s more, many of the churches have also begun to take more of a moral stance on human rights. But the horrific history behind the Catholic Church has laid the foundation for many writers, all of whom know of the dark scandals in which the priests were implicated, the secret sins that no one wants to surface.