Thomas Valentine Bermingham, SJ (1918 – 21 November 1998) was an American Jesuit priest, and Classical teacher and scholar.

[1][2] He was one of nine siblings, including Edith, Mary, Betty, Helen, Margaret L., Suzanne, Robert A., and John H.[1][2][3] His family was of Irish descent, and growing up he attended Regis High School, a Jesuit institution in New York City.

[5] Notably, he taught future Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, and acted as a mentor to him.

Father Bermingham told me that Virgil was the greatest of the Roman poets, that he lived just three or four decades before Christ, and that he is known mostly for his epic poem, the Aeneid.

[10] The case of Roland Doe piqued his interest and Blatty never forgot it, eventually making a novel and movie based on that story.

From August 2–10, 1953, funded by a Fulbright scholarship, he traveled to Cumae with a summer study tour led by the Rev.

[17][18][19] During the spring months beginning in March, he worked on a dissertation, "a critical edition of John Chrysostom's earliest opusculum.

[21] The Exorcist is a 1971 supernatural horror novel by William Peter Blatty, based on the true story of Roland Doe, a 1949 case in which Catholic priests performed a series of exorcisms on a 14-year-old boy in Maryland.

[9][10] Blatty first heard about the Roland Doe case from his religion professor at Georgetown, a priest named Father Gallagher.

Thomas V. Bermingham, S. J., Vice-Provincial for Formation of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, for suggesting the subject matter of this novel.

[13][23] During the course of the filming, a large number of mysterious accidents and odd events were taking place on the set, and the cast and crew were increasingly nervous.

Eventually, the director, William Friedkin, approached Bermingham and asked him to exorcise the set, which held the construction of the Georgetown townhouse and was located in a warehouse.

[27][28] Bermingham then gave a solemn blessing and said a few words of reassurance in an event attended by the entire cast and crew, from Friedkin to Max von Sydow, who played Father Merrin.

[25][26][27][28] The Exorcist became a smash hit after its release in December 1973, and in the weeks that followed, many viewers wound up fainting, vomiting, or running out of theaters screaming.

[29] The property damage and workload for movie theater janitors caused by the pandemonium became so substantial that Warner Bros. actually requested that Bermingham attend an opening to offer spiritual counsel to people who were unable to cope with the film's content.