The Psychology of Father Paul Hill (Midnight Mass): The Tragedy of Blind Faith

So Midnight mass came out of nowhere, at least for me. A fresh series I got into while everyone else on the planet was watching Squid game. And I was fascinated why more people weren’t talking about it. Netflix has a record of making sub-par shows but when something that’s above the usual crap pops out it has an ability of becoming insanely famous almost immediately, but we’re not here right now to discuss the show as a whole but rather discus, at least to me the most interesting character of the show: Father Paul Hill

There be spoilers ahead!

The show takes place entirely on a small fishing village called ‘Crockett Island’ that’s going through a tough season, and the entire village has its fate intertwined with the catholic fate which is the predominant religion of the region.

The island has a single church in it which is led by Monsignor Pruitt who is said to be near 80 at the start of the series, and we are assured that he is losing his marbles in his old age. The village funds a pilgrimage to the Holy land for the senile old man for all that he’s done, and that’s where he supposedly at during the start of the show.

Now we soon find out that the good Monsignor Pruitt fell ill during his trip and the catholic church sent a replacement in his place by the name of  Father Paul Hill, who is young, charismatic and oh so very tall! Now if you’ve already seen the show (and if you haven’t why are you here?) you know the main twist which is that Monsignor Pruitt and Father Paul are the same person!

The Curious Case of Monsignor Pruitt

So how does an old man in his eighties losing his marbles revert back into his 25 year old, handsome (and tall!) self? I mean he was a priest, so maybe it’s a divine blessing, or maybe he found the Holy Grail during his travel to Jerusalem, and surprisingly the answer isn’t that far off. But instead of finding an old grail that once contained the blood of Jesus Christ our man Father Paul finds something a bit more exciting: A vampire!

Now before we go forward I want you take a look at this picture…

Take a good long look it’s not that scary. Now this is a vampire, I saw it and went ‘oh a vampire’. And yes more the Nosferatu kind than the sexy teen vampires of today but yeah that’s a vampire.

Now, let’s say that this is a world in which Bram Stoker didn’t have a bat fetish and Dracula did not become one of the most notable stories of gothic fiction in history, cementing the concept of a vampire to the modern day. Let’s for arguments sake pretend this is world in which the very concept of Vampires do not exist and twilight did not become an inescapable huge franchise (such a beautiful dream) ensuring pre-teen girls didn’t grow up fantasizing about pale dead guys. The bible still exists, In fact id’ argue the entire show is heavily based of it! I cleverly deduced this on seeing every single episode of the show being named after a book from it.

Now take a look at this picture again…

Doesn’t get prettier a second time does he?

So in world where Christianity is ever present, this creature is encountered by a man, a priest no less. Looks at the demonic wings, demonic claws and demonic face, and what does this our dear Father Paul decide to call him: an Angel

You dense M*****F*****

So this one moment is what made me fascinated by the character of Monsignor Pruitt/ Father Paul. At first I laughed, and thought this was stupid. But then I thought about this some more and realized that no, it’s actually strangely brilliant.

“None is righteous” (Romans 3:10)

For you see, Father Paul is no ordinary man, but a man of faith, a proper down to earth Christian priest, who’s not in it for all the Sacramental wine and the underage altar-boys but because he actually believes in his religion and God.

So this alone tells us why he would see a biblical figure rather than a vampire, but why an angel? A man of faith when clearly faced with such a monster should be thinking demon not Angel.

And this is where we see that our dear Priest is not without sin, one of the seven deadly sins in fact: Pride.