Why the Catholic Church tried to bury ‘The Devils’

The Catholic Church and allied censors tried to bury The Devils because the film dramatized how institutional power can weaponize faith against dissent. Ken Russell’s 1971 adaptation of the Loudun possessions accused Cardinal Richelieu’s agents of staging a witchcraft trial to crush a defiant priest and an independent town. That direct assault on church-state collusion, paired with images of sexual hysteria inside a convent, set off decades of suppression that only ended with the film’s restored director’s cut in limited release this month.

Restoration revives the scandal

Warner Bros. Clockwork premiered the uncut 4K version at Cannes Classics in May. The 114-minute print restores the notorious “Rape of Christ” sequence and other excised material that had never screened theatrically in its intended form. The NC-17 rating and modest October 16 U.S. rollout still produced nearly $5,000 per-screen averages, enough to extend runs in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

International rollout followed on October 30 through the BFI, giving British audiences their first legal look at the footage Russell defended as essential to his critique. The timing coincides with renewed campus debates over religious authority and bodily autonomy, lending fresh resonance to the film’s themes.

Streaming platforms have also reported spikes in searches for the title, reflecting how the limited theatrical window functions as a live preview for eventual home release. The restored cut is already on track to become the definitive commercial edition after fifty-five years of fragmented circulation.

Russell’s intent and Jesuit blessing

Russell was a practicing Catholic when he made the film and received informal approval from a Jesuit advisor, Father Gene Phillips, who argued that depicting blasphemy is not the same as endorsing it. The director called The Devils his “one political film,” focused on brainwashing and the state’s use of religious spectacle to enforce conformity.

He framed the Loudun story as a seventeenth-century prototype for modern propaganda, with Cardinal Richelieu’s campaign against Father Grandier standing in for any government that recruits the church to neutralize opposition. That framing positioned the picture as critique rather than anti-Catholic polemic, a distinction censors largely refused to accept.

Russell later noted that the film continued to be taught at Loyola University in Chicago as an example of serious Catholic cinema, underscoring the gap between institutional panic in 1971 and later scholarly reception.

The sequence that triggered Vatican outrage

The most contested scene shows naked nuns desecrating a large crucifix during an episode of collective hysteria. Russell intercut the sequence with Grandier’s communion, arguing that the debasement of the image was necessary to show how political manipulation distorts religious symbols. The BBFC demanded the entire passage be removed before any British submission.

Vatican observers at the Venice Film Festival described the footage as “images and sounds of such an obscenity as had never been seen before on the screen.” The Holy See formally requested the picture be withdrawn, labeling it a “crude lynching of the Church.”

Additional cuts eliminated Sister Jeanne’s use of Grandier’s charred femur in a masturbatory act and several prolonged torture scenes. The remaining version still earned an X certificate, but local councils in seventeen British towns banned even the truncated print.

BBFC and Warner Bros. coordination

Internal BBFC memos characterized the footage as “prohibitive, objectionable” and warned of potential violations under the Obscene Publications Act. Examiners worried that graphic mixing of sex and religion would provoke public disorder. Warner Bros. agreed to cuts to protect the film’s commercial prospects and to limit legal exposure.

The studio’s willingness to collaborate with censors ensured the picture would never reach theaters in its complete form during Russell’s lifetime. Director’s-cut advocates later cited the studio’s stance as a textbook case of preemptive corporate censorship driven by fear of religious protest.

Guillermo del Toro, among later defenders, publicly called the refusal to release the full version “a true act of censorship,” highlighting how commercial caution extended the suppression beyond official religious condemnation.

Mary Whitehouse and the Festival of Light

Conservative campaigner Mary Whitehouse’s Nationwide Festival of Light organized protests outside cinemas and lobbied local authorities to block screenings. Whitehouse maintained that artistic quality could never excuse blasphemy, a position that aligned with the Vatican’s stance and amplified pressure on distributors.

The group’s interventions kept the film out of circulation in parts of the UK even after the BBFC granted an X certificate. Similar campaigns in Ireland, Italy, and Finland resulted in outright bans that lasted into the twenty-first century.

Archival records show that Whitehouse’s correspondence with Warner Bros. executives frequently referenced the risk of copycat demonstrations, illustrating how grassroots religious activism shaped distribution decisions long after the film’s initial release.

Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave’s performances

Oliver Reed’s portrayal of Grandier balanced charisma with moral ambiguity, presenting the priest as both principled resistor and flawed man. Vanessa Redgrave’s Sister Jeanne conveyed repressed desire turning into political weapon, a performance that drew praise even from reviewers who condemned the film’s imagery.

The casting of recognizable stars gave the picture a commercial profile that intensified the stakes for censors. Reed’s established box-office draw and Redgrave’s critical prestige made the material harder to dismiss as underground provocation.

Their presence also ensured that clips and stills circulated widely in mainstream press coverage, keeping the controversy visible even when the full film remained difficult to see.

Comparisons to other banned 1970s titles

The Devils entered the marketplace alongside A Clockwork Orange, another film whose distributor voluntarily withdrew prints under threat of local bans. Both cases showed how 1970s British censorship operated through a combination of official classification and informal pressure on exhibitors.

Unlike Kubrick’s film, however, The Devils never received a director-sanctioned home-video release in its complete form until the current restoration. The extended suppression created a longer gap between production and public access, sharpening the film’s reputation as a suppressed artifact.

Contemporary programmers now pair the two titles in repertory screenings to trace how religious versus secular objections shaped different censorship outcomes during the same period.

Enduring academic and artistic defense

Scholars have argued that the film’s graphic sequences function as Brechtian alienation effects, forcing viewers to confront the political utility of religious spectacle rather than simply consuming it. That interpretation gained traction once university film courses began programming the truncated version in the 1980s.

Russell himself maintained that the picture attacked institutional corruption, not faith, and pointed to the Jesuit consultant’s approval as evidence. The distinction mattered little to 1971 authorities but has become central to later reevaluations.

Recent essays in America Magazine have revisited the blasphemy debate, noting that the restored cut allows audiences to assess whether the “Rape of Christ” sequence indicts political manipulation or simply offends religious sensibility.

What the re-release changes

The 2026 theatrical run demonstrates that a significant audience exists for the uncensored version, even under an NC-17 rating. Limited-release metrics suggest the film can sustain art-house playdates without mainstream broadcast support.

Home-video and streaming editions are expected to follow, potentially standardizing the director’s cut as the default presentation. That shift would reverse fifty-five years of distribution practice shaped by religious protest and corporate caution.

The restored print also arrives at a moment when debates over institutional authority, bodily autonomy, and media representation remain active, giving the film’s historical argument contemporary traction.

Forward trajectory

The Devils survived coordinated suppression because its core claim—that religious hysteria can be manufactured for political ends—remains legible to successive generations. The 2026 re-release converts a once-buried object into a commercial and scholarly reference point. Future viewers will encounter the film closer to Russell’s original design, allowing the political critique to operate without the institutional filters that once contained it.