The Devil Took Her Faith First: Why Rosemary’s Baby Is a Cautionary Tale for Catholics

In the annals of horror history, few movies are as seemingly Godless as the 1968 classic Rosemary’s Baby. The film follows Rosemary Woodhouse, a young woman living in New York, as she slowly comes to realize that a local coven of witches has recruited her husband, Guy, to help them carry out a nefarious plan for her unborn baby. It’s every mother’s worst nightmare, but the truth is much more diabolical than even she could’ve imagined.

The witches actually conjured the devil to secretly conceive a child with her, and this child is destined to become the Antichrist. Unfortunately, Rosemary only learns this horrible truth after her son is born, but by then it’s too late. The woman’s maternal instincts soon kick in, and after hearing a chorus of demonic chants like “Hail, Satan!” and “God is dead!”, she gives in and agrees to raise the child.

On top of its overtly Satanic story, Rosemary’s Baby also appears to attack and even mock the Catholic faith. There’s a scene where some of the main characters criticize the pope and the Church, and Rosemary periodically experiences bizarre dreams suffused with confused Catholic imagery.

The whole thing just seems like a Godless exercise in blatant anti-Catholicism, but I’d suggest that there’s more to this movie than meets the eye. If we look at it through a Catholic lens, we’ll find that it actually contains a surprisingly profound message about the value of faith, so let’s take a deep dive into Rosemary’s Baby and see how it teaches this important lesson.

Good Guys and Bad Guys
To begin, let’s clear the ground a bit and show that the film doesn’t truly disparage our faith, starting with the characters’ criticisms of the Church. These remarks all come in a single scene, where Rosemary and Guy have dinner with the Castevets for the very first time. Roman and Minnie Castevet are an older couple who live in the apartment right next to the Woodhouses, but unbeknownst to their younger friends, they’re also key members of the cult that wants to bring the Antichrist into the world.

The two couples talk a bit about Pope Paul VI’s upcoming visit to New York, and Roman quips that popes never visit cities where the media is on strike. He believes all organized religion is hypocritical, and in hearty agreement, Guy dubs the whole thing just another form of show business.

After these brazen (and, to be frank, stupid) criticisms of the Church, Minnie and Roman turn to Rosemary and ask what she thinks. As a former Catholic, she’s not entirely comfortable with the conversation, but the only defense she can muster is a sheepish “Well, he is the pope.” In response, Roman proclaims that we don’t need to respect the pontiff just because he “pretends to be holy,” and unsurprisingly, his argument leaves Rosemary at a loss for words.

People often take that discussion as a blatant attack on the Church, and the first time you watch Rosemary’s Baby, it definitely appears that way. The movie hasn’t revealed the truth about Roman and Minnie yet, so as far as a first-time viewer knows, these are just four fine people enjoying a pleasant meal together.

But by the time the credits begin to roll, the scene takes on a very different meaning. You eventually realize that Roman, Minnie, and Guy are the primary villains of this story, so you can’t simply assume that they speak for the film. That would be like thinking Avengers: Infinity War supports genocide because Thanos wants to wipe out half the universe.

That’s not how movies work. They typically align themselves with the views of the protagonist, and in Rosemary’s Baby, that’s the one person who tries to defend the maligned pontiff. To be fair, Rosemary’s argument is half-hearted at best, so we can’t say the film genuinely supports the Church. However, because the ones who happily criticize the pope are the villains, it’s fair to conclude that the movie doesn’t endorse their views either. It merely recounts them, and there’s nothing anti-Catholic about that.

Garbled Recollections
The same principle also explains the cult’s Satanic exclamations at the end of Rosemary’s Baby, but it doesn’t quite take us all the way home. We still have to account for the confused Catholic imagery in Rosemary’s dreams–including angry nuns, an odd conversation with Pope Paul, and a group of Catholic schoolgirls. Do these creations of the woman’s subconscious constitute an attack on our Church? The way I see it, the answer is a pretty clear no.

Rosemary grew up Catholic, she attended Catholic school, and at one point in the movie, she even talks about the pope’s upcoming visit to her city. That’s enough to make anybody dream about nuns and bishops, and because she no longer practices her faith, it’s totally plausible that those images would become garbled in her mind.

In other words, these dreams are simply a natural part of the character, so they don’t tell us anything about the film’s attitude towards the Church. In fact, I’d even argue that they play an important role in the story. See, film is a visual medium, so if a movie wants to make a point, it shouldn’t just tell the audience.

It should show us, and that’s exactly what these dreams do. They show us Rosemary’s obscured (at best!) faith, so we don’t have to take the woman’s word for it. We can see the sorry state of her Catholicism for ourselves, and if you ask me, that wilted piety is the key to interpreting this movie as a Catholic.

An Urgent Warning
Rosemary’s Baby never explains why Minnie and Roman chose Rosemary to be the Antichrist’s mother, but from a perspective of faith, it’s safe to say that the woman’s rejection of God played a key role in their decision. You even get the feeling that the couple purposely insulted the pope at that fateful dinner because they wanted to see how Rosemary would react.

If she showed herself to be a pious woman, they most likely would’ve looked for another victim, as the devil wouldn’t have been able to touch her. But since she openly declared her lack of faith, she had no defense against their demonic machinations. The enemy was able to push the poor woman around at will, and he even used her motherly instincts to compel her to raise the child herself.

It’s a tragic turn of events, and it hauntingly illustrates our absolute dependence on grace and our helplessness against the power of evil without it. Sure, witches probably won’t choose us to bring the literal spawn of Satan into the world, but we all have to deal with diabolical temptations to sin. Each and every one of us is engaged in an ongoing spiritual battle just as real as Rosemary’s, and if we want any chance at winning, we have to maintain a lively faith nourished by prayer and the sacraments. If we don’t, we’ll inevitably fall prey to the snares the devil puts in our way, and for a Catholic, that’s the biggest tragedy of all.