Free Republic

William Peter Blatty, an author whose novel “The Exorcist” and his later screenplay for the 1973 film about a demonic possession became a phenomenon and stirred fierce public debate about the occult, died Jan. 12 at a hospital near his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 89. The cause was a form of multiple myeloma, said his wife, Julie Witbrodt Blatty. Mr. Blatty was a junior at Georgetown University when, in 1949, he became mesmerized by a Washington Post story detailing the alleged exorcism by a Jesuit priest of a 14-year-old boy from Mount Rainier, Md. who was believed to...

A prominent Georgetown University alumnus has announced plans for a canonical lawsuit in a bid to restore the school’s Catholic identity. William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist, is asking Georgetown alumni, faculty, students, and friends to join in his canonical case, in which he will ask the Archdiocese of Washington and the Holy See to take action “up to including the possible removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic or Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants.” In his plea for support of the canonical case, Blatty argues that Georgetown has failed to...