The Perverse Eucharist: Flanagan's Midnight Mass as Religious Satire

Angel of God, my guardian dear to whom God's love commits me here. Ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen. In a steady, intense, labyrinthine build over the course of seven episodes, Flanagan takes us on a chilling journey dripping with biblical allegories, taking a deep and bloody dive into themes of good vs. evil and the wide expanse of gray in between; angels and demons and how it's not so easy to distinguish between the two, and how unwavering, rigid, dogmatic faith and spirituality can result in salvation for some and eternal damnation for others. (Roeper 2021). Created by Mike Flanagan, well-known writer and cerebral horror film director, Midnight Mass is an intensely personal exploration of faith and addiction, particularly alcoholism. Although Crockett Island is a fictional place, it is suggestive of the “weird little island” of Flanagan's youth, Governors Island, in New York Harbor. As the New York Times' Darren King describes the context: “It was a place that lent itself well to ghost stories and an active imagination” (2021), a place that prompted Flanagan and his contemporaries to read horror stories, including Stephen King's It, and then to stage and enact these dramas. Darren King captures Flanagan's character in the series, too, including its deep Catholicism and consternation about addiction. Flanagan explained, “My biggest fear wasn't that I would die in a drunken car accident […] it was that I would kill someone else and live. That is the beating heart of ‘Midnight Mass’” (King 2021). Midnight Mass' successes, even as a deeply personal project, are neither trivial nor idiosyncratic, earning critical and popular praise, including (Metacritic 2021) aggregate rates of 7.5 and 8.1 and (Rotten Tomatoes 2021) aggregate rates of 87% and 78%, respectively. Flanagan's narrative reflects a rich tradition of exploring mortality through stories featuring the Catholic Church, its priests, and laity. Midnight Mass aligns with a legacy narrative about how to understand and confront aberrations, cryptids, and evil. The internet showcases vast accounts of Catholics challenging these monsters, notable given that the most central ritual and sacrament, the Eucharist, centers on the consumption of blood—holy blood, transmuted blood—but nevertheless the viscera of horror and mortality. Consider, for example, the character Dracula, whether from Bram Stoker's original novel or in the dozens of adaptations since, who can be read within an affirmative Catholic context or as a perversion of Catholic doctrine (e.g., Starrs 2004; Petiprin 2020; Marshall 2014). Nicholson explains, for instance, “Catholicism has played a special role in the development of the English Gothic literary genre, especially but not exclusively regarding the blood-drinking undead” (2021). Centering on the release of the 2023 film The Pope's Exorcist, based on Father Gabriele Amorth's (1925–2016) memoirs, Brooke Kinsley cites (appropriately) 13 films centering on the interconnectedness of Catholicism and questions of mortality and evil, including The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), The Rite (2011), Final Prayer (2013), and the TV series Evil (2019). One might easily and reasonably add films as diverse as Priest (2011), The Addiction (1995), Signs (2002), Nefarious (2023) and Knisley (2023). Interestingly, the artistic and popular treatment of the monstrous carves out a curious space for Catholicism. Take, for instance, Jonathan Cahn's most recent book, The Return of the Gods (2022). Cahn's argument suggests the Babylonian shedu, Hebrew shedim, and Greek daimonion are equivalent to the contemporary notion of the evil spirit or demon; the pagan gods were proxies for these spirits, and that the acolytes of the gods were possessed. Baal, Ishtar, and Moloch are the primary evil entities he identifies, and the variety of acolytes, including the Oracle of Delphi, were understood to be close to the gods, receiving communion with the gods, or possessed by the gods through “shakings, convulsions, and violent frenzies” (Cahn 2022, 15–16). In Christian theology, such interaction with God often focuses on the Pentecost.2 Catholic canon interprets the Holy Spirit to be a part of the sacrament of Eucharist, and the communion Cahn describes (and as seen in the above movies) could be read as evidence of potential demonic possession. Protestant interpretations and variations of charismatic or non-denominational Christianity may believe that the Holy Spirit produces those effects, including glossolalia (speaking in “tongues”), “falling out,” and “holy rolling,” all colloquialisms for the actions Cahn describes above. Midnight Mass occupies a space within these particularly Catholic meditations in popular culture. Rather than offering a demon in Socratic exchange, though, Flanagan's monster is literally silent and arguably metaphorical. A limited series in which Catholics struggle to understand lives of suffering and to forgive and love one another, Midnight Mass might also be closer to dramatic treatments of faith (i.e., drama, not horror), like 2014's Calvary. In the parlance of textual criticism and ontology, it is helpful to distinguish between a work being an allegory (a condition of which is that the creator intended it to be an allegory) and the ex post facto act of allegoresis—i.e., a reader imposing an allegorical meaning on a work that was unintended by its creator (see Berek 1978). Allegoresis is not, in itself, problematic, but where a distinction of this sort can be drawn, it is useful to do so. (2022, 2) In addition to drawing on Lammer-Heindel's notes, this section of the essay considers readings of Midnight Mass in order to establish its interpretative framework. Lerke and Seebach (2022), for instance, read in Midnight Mass a counterpoint to the desire for normative ability, particularly in the tragically disabled character Leeza Scarborough. The healing elements in the series are not ordained and sanctified by God, despite the adoration and blessing during mass, and they explore the ways God acknowledges the vast diversity in humanity and offers love and salvation regardless. In contrast, David Kyle Johnson (2022) reads Midnight Mass as arguing for atheism, focusing on its critique of the Church's—and Christianity's—inability to explain evil, substantiate the miraculous, or support its broader metaphysical worldview. Flanagan might be understood, at times, to sympathize with those positions (King 2021), but Midnight Mass can also be read as being ultimately about hope and redemption. Indeed, Romano (2021) indicts Flanagan for reconstituting the standard interplay of horror and religion, surprised by the series' effuse faith, calling Midnight Mass “a homily.” Instead of theological or sociological perspectives, this essay follows the interdisciplinary approach to the arts and media in contemporary popular culture studies. It considers the series Midnight Mass as an allegory, not allegoresis, one situated in the recursivity of religious doctrine, the individual, and popular culture. Rather than imposing notes of theology or religious skepticism, this essay engages the cultural heteroglossia, the fascinating interplay between Flanagan and the long literary and artistic traditions in satire, in the grotesque, in questioning and playing in the stuff of one's soul. The legendary St. Genesius became the patron saint of comedians, actors, and scoffers in an unexpected, and even comic, way. Around 303 ce, the comic playwright performed for Emperor Diocletian, presenting a farce mocking baptism and ridiculing Christian rituals. (Lindvall 2015, 41). Genesius suddenly had a vision, an epiphany, and endorsed Christ. In other words, St. Genesius symbolizes the synergy of faith and humor, of religious satire. Critics and scholars like Johnson who read Midnight Mass as a critical endorsement of atheism draw Flanagan too far from faith. A striking example of his interest in faith in Midnight Mass comes through its use of the sobriety program Alcoholics Anonymous. Informed by Flanagan's own experiences, Father Hill offers the program for Riley on Crockett Island. Flanagan would have recited the AA credo and associated prayers and would have been familiar with figures like the Catholic nun and part-founder, Sister Mary Ignatia. Similarly, Flanagan writes far too much redemption into Midnight Mass to read it as anti-Catholic or anti-religious. He writes too much understanding that the fear and guilt of the Rileys in the world are potentially resolved in Lammer-Heindel's focus on love, particularly in the Eucharist, in God, and in one another. Flanagan seeks, in the profound traditions of 15th-century Catholic scholar Sebastian Brandt and his “Das Narrenschiff” (“Ship of Fools”) or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, to satirize Catholicism and its sacraments in order to right and embolden it. Lindvall argues “True satire requires both wit and purpose. Without the first, it is mere condemnation; without the second, it is mere venting of the spleen” (2015, 267–268). Reading or interpreting Flanagan and Midnight Mass as atheistic or secular therefore misses the more sophisticated and nuanced point—that Flanagan can satirize Catholicism in order to reappraise and endorse its great value. Further consider Lindvall's primary heuristic, the “Quad of Satire, which identifies four key elements on two axes: moral purpose versus ridicule and humor versus rage” (2015, 7; Figure 1). Flanagan's Midnight Mass, thus, sits conservatively in the quadrant of moral purpose and rage. In that quadrant, this essay relies on two premises: (a) Religious satire can be generative and hopeful, and (b) it can be reached through grotesque and horrific representations. In other words, Flanagan narrates the deeply human ways Crockett Island residents deal with loss, addiction, and faith, but he does so critically through ironic zealotry, exaggerating the threat in faith with a hyperbolic monster, and leaving the residents comically stupefied at the destruction they created. The residents content to die are those who have listened to one another, who have understood the need for love. Regardless, this humble, grotesque army of God burns away. Understanding the features and functions of religious satire provides insight into Flanagan and Midnight Mass, and this framework of satire is an important antidote to misreading (e.g., Johnson 2022) or misunderstanding. As Lindvall notes, “Religious satire is an effective form of indirect communication, except when it is misunderstood by its audiences” (2015, 270). That Midnight Mass centers on faith and redemption, on love and forgiveness, is certain, just as a reading of the series as exclusively about vampire horror misunderstands Flanagan's script. Midnight Mass features a vampire only insofar as a grotesque angel (discussed below) and only insofar as a metaphorical element within Flanagan's meditation on faith.4 One imagines this point made in how little Flanagan explains about the Catholic canon or its central sacrament, the Eucharist, or the complicated doctrinal teaching of transubstantiation, relying instead on the viewers' understanding of human interests in redemption, love, faith, and community. Nevertheless, Netflix algorithms viewers, and critics can and have idiosyncratically categorized Midnight Mass (e.g., as conventional horror, vampire drama, allegorical critique of religiosity, or “a homily”). That may only reify this reading of Midnight Mass within the tradition of religious satire. As Lindvall explains, “the history of religious satire is ambivalent with respect to the efficacy of its art. It may not be recognized or understood by its audience” (2015, 274). In either case, the grotesque can be pragmatic to satirical goals and is central to Midnight Mass. Indeed, in angels who are not angels and transformative priests and penitent alcoholics and more, the series embodies tense “compassion for the relationship between beauty and ugliness” (Schevill 1977, 235). Religion's satirical narratives, grotesque and absurd, are supported in other texts, including revering the angel of God as Hill does in Midnight Mass, as both proxy of divine compassion and harbinger of destruction. Similarly, consider how Lana Del Rey identifies an American pantheon in the short film Tropico that includes the sacred and profane—John Wayne, Jesus, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley (Crutcher 2019). As Lana Del Rey reveres Jesus and Marilyn Monroe, the kind face of Christ's mercy plays alongside the open playfulness of Monroe's seduction. Consider the basic elements of the Midnight Mass script. A delusional priest brings an angel of God back to his hometown, feeds the residents the angel's blood, the resulting vampiric confusion creates anarchy in the town, and essentially everyone dies, many singing an old Christian hymn. Indeed, references to church, religion, and magic, are not exceptional in interviews, reviews and theatre programs. In post-secular artistic milieus, theatre is often depicted as a contemporary alternative to church. Indeed, the cliché is: the church has become obsolete, the quest for meaning persists, the theatre deals with this. (2012, 459) Having established the interpretive framework above for reading and understanding Midnight Mass, this essay moves now to explore two central symbols in the series as rooted in religious satire—the angel as grotesque and the perverse Eucharist. Historians suggest the iconic figure of the Christian angel, notably with wings, emerged as a cultural amalgam in the 3rd to 4th centuries AD. Renaissance and Baroque art (17th and 18th centuries) reified the image, including the brilliant figures of St. Michael. See “The Ecstacy of St. Teresa” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1644–1652), the of in by or the most of the “The by the the of the angels in and in by contemporary including the or the curious and contemporary of especially the angel in the 2023 are given such an artistic and cultural The with offers the The angel in the a of those and the figure in for instance, a on his and in his were and The Catholic Father the and It “the of in the these in and religion, it was the or the and That the is grotesque in how little respect or the it. the being is by a into a the of a and with the of a a the to the angel a like the who his but from the and of the of the traditions the in horrific the are literally the the are with and the are (2022, the or receiving can be to be imposing and within the and stories in which they the who in be not (see and and (2022, most and in the popular angels are of Consider just the contemporary that the that angels in this or suggest become angels or especially in and or those calling for or to the of this as of religious A limited of in an or and work with and in to the in the in the as in to or Lana Del or the curious of elements to this argument in (e.g., angels have and The is “the and of the Christian “The other and all and of the are with the and are it. in the is the good of the Church, The is the and of of is to the Eucharist, and the in of In a when was this his and more he the the to his all of and from this is the of my of the and eternal be out for and for the of this in of understand the angel and within a framework of religious satire requires at how religious satire within Midnight Mass as seen in A of the stories of Jesus in the as and The are far more far more and In other words, Flanagan moves from and to the human that are the of Midnight Mass. the religious satire of this sort to Flanagan the to the love, forgiveness, and these for in the of and the grotesque the satire and criticism of this essay and Midnight Mass the Flanagan to this and its central One of the central Flanagan for a of for example, when from his in a to In this from a in a he the angel of God, and are for as horrific and It of The angel in form to the in the 2023 film The of the like the nor like the biblical Flanagan has this and in so the and the to a but also a reasonably and Flanagan also and of he and the series, with biblical As includes of the through to regarding the of the of in the but also and St. for in Midnight Mass. is the to Father Hill as for instance, and the to he was by an angel of even when has a can be read as with the satire of the or Lindvall argues such and critique as satire. the and support and from including the destruction for and the profound in or destruction in The of Christ's is especially to the and the and of the Consider is the of my that all who the and believe in may have eternal and I on the be and even as the Crockett Island is are Catholics to understand relying on the of faith (and the this may understand (and the about the (i.e., the is of or within profound dies, a violent and and is as the he to the of the he through his and can God to be it's God's by his and just the Further into the the deep and to the and other words, just as the as an angel, even the the faith be seen as In one of the most between the priest and its to and guilt with suggests Riley is just the sort of (i.e., of that Jesus and A one in contemporary and and TV was for the a it he were so many in church, and the of the God is and the It me that I my faith at that (King 2021). about the and the about Flanagan but be to the that the for and that to the That is one of the that me in horror in the place, and is as much as it is horror (King 2021) to his interest in of faith, including faith in its most by how how he at and the world so many of us are based on the that God is on side, and that God the (King 2021) at on a a of faith in is to the for the of takes to be the act in the of the of (2022, of as a and iconic or evil. all the diversity of vampire this like a on Flanagan's especially in so intensely Catholic a 2021) as Flanagan does on the and of Crockett Island centers Midnight Mass on forgiveness, and love. One of the most for instance, features Leeza and are by the by an from (and to Leeza now the and with and ultimately The the love he with and they with and by the most of the residents the and as they the and and these residents in the God, to The series with to the the angel dies, or some the in a and with hopeful, and Flanagan the that most to atheism, and by had more of a from reading than I had reading the Flanagan (King 2021). in part on of this sort from Flanagan, Darren King into the that Midnight Mass is a of faith, or even a for The most of its have or the priest wasn't the the faith to the and the angel may have the such a reading misses both the humanity and the and hope in Midnight Mass. In and I part of I read Flanagan this the of a curious and in to and with and in the two Catholic Protestant me to for and the Church, had faith in the and love of from the of the and for mercy and from a vast of The spirit in which Flanagan us to Midnight Mass is in the long tradition of religious Midnight Mass is a satire. In love, forgiveness, and Flanagan to the of Catholicism. It is a series that can be read as the of the Christ's to the and Flanagan a of the Catholic at its the with and the the forgiveness, redemption, and love, and the in the central to Catholic not to this as were or during the