@movie_nazi said:

In the first film they went on and on how difficult it was to get the church to approve an exorcism and then in this film we have a priest just waltz on in there and begin the ritual.

At the meeting in Father Riley's office, the Father said to Kinderman that he would talk to the chaplain of the hospital, Father Morning, who had once performed an exorcism in the Philippines.

@wonder2wonder said:

@movie_nazi said:

In the first film they went on and on how difficult it was to get the church to approve an exorcism and then in this film we have a priest just waltz on in there and begin the ritual.

At the meeting in Father Riley's office, the Father said to Kinderman that he would talk to the chaplain of the hospital, Father Morning, who had once performed an exorcism in the Philippines.

Yup. Also I think the end of the movie is where a hint of divine intervention comes into play. The perfect timing of Father Morning's entrance, the beam of sunlight on the cross, these things could be just coincidental or insignificant, but they add just enough mystery for the audience to believe that there was some hand of God in the matter, if they choose to see it that way.

One of the brilliant things this movie does is it presents 3 different realities: there's the real world (Kinderman), and then there's the demon's reality (which shows Brad Dourif's face even though Kinderman sees Karras). And the 3rd would be Father Morning's perspective which is full of supernatural visions and possible divine intervention. There's a great line in the movie that draws them all together, when the demon says "you would see if you looked with the eyes of faith."

So the movie presents a gestalt that can be accepted in any of 3 ways, depending on our own "faith".

By the way, there is no Father Morning in the Director's Cut version.