"There's a lot of people with no faith. If something like this happens to them, what do you do? Do you leave them?" said Lorraine Warren, a Catholic who accompanied her husband, Ed, on numerous such trips to rid dwellings of demons.
The story told in "The Conjuring" is of a family in Harrisville, R.I., with six children, none of whom had been baptized. In the movie, the family has five children.
"If you're deal with haunting phenomena like what was going on in that home in Rhode Island, if you're dealing with that, and there's six children, and at that time, they weren't really religious, that was dangerous, because when things happen, you can command in the name of Jesus (for the demon) to leave for where it came from," Warren told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from her home in Monroe, Conn. "But you want to be in a state of grace when you're doing it."
Under canon law -- Canon 1172 specifically -- only those priests who get permission from their bishops can perform an exorcism after proper training.
Now in her 80s, Warren said she was glad that the filmmakers wanted to tell the story of this 1971 haunting.
The real-life family experienced paranormal events, claiming their house was haunted by the evil spirit of a mother who killed her son and daughter when they lived there in the 19th century.
"I'm glad they picked that story, because there's certainly enough documentation about it, with their six children," she said.
Warren said her role in these de-demonizings was secondary to that of her husband, Ed, who died in 2006.
"Ed believed that there are wonderful, great spirits in the world and some very evil ones that have been around for thousands of years, and he was going to do the best he could with his wife to fight them and to help people. Ed honestly believed it through and through," said Patrick Wilson, the actor who portrays Ed Warren in the movie, according to the film's production notes.
Lorraine Warren spent time on the movie set with Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who portrays her in the movie.
The production notes also say that the Warrens had documentation on 4,000 cases of malevolent spirits.
Their ability to take them all on might have hinged on a 1985 declaration by German Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, who was later to become Pope Benedict XVI, that laypeople were barred from conducting exorcisms. Only bishops and priests can perform exorcisms, he said, citing canon law. And "For some years now, there has been a growing number of groups within the church meeting to pray to obtain deliverance from evil spirits," the cardinal wrote. "Although they have not been practicing exorcism in the strict sense, and even though there may be a priest present, these meetings have been taking place under the leadership of laypeople."
His letter was made public in early 1986; it did not cite specific incidents of any laypeople performing an "exorcism."
Warren describes herself as a devout Catholic -- noting that that a retired priest lives in an apartment of the grounds of her home in Monroe, which means, she said, "I have Mass every day of my life."
In his review on "The Conjuring," Kurt Jensen, a CNS guest reviewer, said: "It's satisfyingly high on the jolt meter and other genre conventions, but subpar on Catholicism -- not in a derogatory manner, mind you, but unburdened by pesky things like, oh, say, facts."
The film received a classification of A-III -- adults -- for "a skewed view of Catholic faith practices, intense action sequences, mild gore, fleeting profanity and intense but nonviolent scenes involving children."
Warren herself has seen the movie. Her evaluation? "It's Hollywood, honey," she replied.