Monsignor Pruitt truly did discover an angel in Jerusalem but its origins are certainly not as heavenly as the Father originally believed.
In Midnight Mass, Monsignor Pruitt goes to Jerusalem and comes back with a vampire, but there's a growing theory that it really was an angel as he believed it to be. The series has become a bit of a sleeper hit for Netflix, and it's partly because of how it deftly rewrites the vampire genre, drawing parallels between them and the angels of the Bible. The miniseries is Mike Flanagan's passion project and has been for several years now, with Easter eggs for it showing up in several of his previous films. Inspired by his time as an altar boy and his road to healing regarding his alcohol addiction, the show tackles the horror of religious paranoia as it spreads amongst the devout population of a small fisherman's town named Crockett Island.
Within the show, Flanagan uses the vampire mythos to draw parallels between some of the more unsavory aspects of religious fundamentalism and the ancient blood curse. The show's primary antagonist (although he can't easily be defined as such), Monsignor Pruitt, uses Midnight Mass' horrifying vampire creature as a vehicle by which to enact miracles on the populace of Crockett Island, believing himself to be helping his parish despite the fact that his interference in their lives leads to a whole host of troubles. What deepens the conflict is that the entire time he's doing this, Monsignor Pruitt believes the creature to be an angel, sent directly to him to help the people of Crockett Island when they need aid more than ever.
And while the show blatantly shows that the creature is not there to help anyone, Monsignor Pruitt might not have been that far off from his initial assertion. Even though the creature is incredibly brutal and turns most of Midnight Mass' townspeople into bloodthirsty killers, Monsignor Pruitt may have actually found an angel in that cave - just not one who serves the heavenly God.
Monsignor Pruitt's Savior Is A Fallen Angel
According to Pruitt's confession in Episode 3, in a fugue state induced by the late stages of his rapidly worsening dementia, the Monsignor wandered away from his tour group in the Holy Land. From there he stumbled into a sandstorm that uncovered a darkened underground cave, and that's where he was attacked by what appeared to be a vampire - it drank his blood and then offered its own blood in return when Monsignor Pruitt began to pray. That interaction reversed his aging and reverted him back to a man in his late 30s, convincing him that his assailant was actually an angel sent to him to grant him the gift of eternal life, something he would bring back to his flock on Crockett Island along with Father Paul, the new identity he adopts in Midnight Mass.
However, it's easy to see that the creature is not of Heaven. Its demonic wings and horrific visage would be enough to convince anyone that it was evil, but on top of this, for someone who knows the Bible such as Monsignor Pruitt, he should have been able to see that his attacker was a fallen angel - one of the angels cast out of Heaven after the rebellion of Lucifer long before the creation of man. In most literature, traditional vampires can't enter a church to begin with, which already hints at the creature being a bit different from most interpretations of vampires. The biggest hint toward the creature's true nature is the way it shares its blood with its victims - while this is a common bit of vampire lore in pop culture, it can also be seen as the ultimate perversion of the communion ritual and tradition in Midnight Mass honoring Christ's sacrifice, designed specifically to spite and mock Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. The idea that the Monsignor's creature is a fallen angel would explain a lot of its connection to religious dogma, as well as its ability to manipulate a clergyman.
Fallen Angels In Literature
Fallen angels are the subject of much debate in Abrahamic religions, most notably in Christianity and the Islamic faith. According to the Bible, Lucifer was an angel in Heaven, seated at the right hand of God himself as one of his favored angels. However, Lucifer grew envious of God's power and his love for humanity and incited a rebellion against God, which resulted in the Lord casting out Lucifer along with all of the angels who rebelled against him, shunning them from Heaven and leaving them to roam the Earth, potentially as the twisted vampires seen in Midnight Mass. The Bible details this briefly in Revelations, specifically in Revelations 12:9:
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
The manner in which the Monsignor discovered the creature is also a huge sign of its true nature. Instead of the source of Midnight Mass' vampire coming to him peacefully from Heaven, like many of the angelic visitations detailed in the Bible, the creature is found hidden away inside a darkened cave in Jerusalem. This also feels like a deliberate reference to the scripture Jude 1:6, which says
And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgement of the great day.
The concept of fallen angels is also explored heavily in the 17th-century poem Paradise Lost by John Milton. The poem retells the events of the heavenly war as well as the fall of Adam and Eve through many different perspectives, including that of Satan himself. Milton's poem is one of many works that solidified the idea of Satan as a great deceiver, tricking believers and nonbelievers alike on Earth to spite his Father. In Midnight Mass, Monsignor Pruitt thinks the angel is listening to him, but in truth, the creature was manipulating him from the very beginning.
Why Crockett Island Fell For The Deceit
When Monsignor Pruitt brings his angel back to Crockett Island, the small fishing town is already smack-dab in the middle of its own host of problems. The fish aren't yielding enough to be financially viable, a major storm is getting ready to rock the island, and the town's slowly dwindling population has created major tensions between the few people still there. The fallen angel quickly begins to prey on some of the town's most vulnerable in Midnight Mass, including its cat population as well as people deemed "undesirable" by the town, such as the drug dealer Bowl. In any other town, these bizarre circumstances might have been noticed, but Monsignor Pruitt had already accidentally blinded his flock by inciting a religious pandemonium with the miracles he was achieving through the usage of the fallen angel's blood.
Had the people of the town been exposed to the creature in a vacuum, they may have been able to see it for what it really was, the way that Riley did before he was attacked. However, when it was introduced to them cloaked in the garb of the Catholic Church, they were once again blinded by their own dogmatism and believed it to be an angel of the Lord, which leads to the titular midnight mass inside the church. This is a manipulation tactic used by Satan himself, as stated in 2 Corinthians 11:14:
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
Although it was by no means intentional, Monsignor Pruitt's actions opened his town up to be preyed upon by a vampiric demon that slowly turned them into a paranoid and fanatic time-bomb of violence. Had anyone in the town pulled the wool from over their eyes, they may have been able to see their so-called savior for what it truly was and spared themselves the horrific mass tragedy at the end of the series. Midnight Mass deftly combines religious tradition and iconic vampire lore to paint an absolutely terrifying image of a fallen angel, one of the oldest villains in all of humanity's shared history.
Next: Midnight Mass: Biggest Unanswered Questions, Plot-Holes & Head Scratchers
