There has been a lot of attention paid to comments Rick Santorum made in a speech at Ave Maria University about Satan. Delivering a speech at Ave Maria University in 2008, the former senator said, in part:
The Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies, Satan, would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country, the United States of America.
I asked Exorcist author William Peter Blatty for his thoughts on the comments and the outrage:
When every culture in every part of the world from the beginning of history has entertained a belief in the likelihood that there is a Very, Very Bad Guy out there who “destroys the work of the Creator,” my tendency is to believe that where there is quite that much smoke there is probably fire — if you get my drift. To doubt the possibility of such a being out of hand is to regard Christ and/or the evangelists as either maniacs, liars, or very, very, very mistaken. As for Santorum’s outspokenness on the subject, I far prefer a man who has a position and lets us know what it is as opposed to Addison and Steele’s Sir Roger de Coverley whose answer to any difficult question put to him was always, “There is much to be said on both sides.” Yes, there is, but who is to say that Santorum’s side is the one that is incorrect?