This study examines the representation of catholic religion and existential questions in Mike Flanagan’s television series Midnight Mass (2021). The choice of topic was based on an interest in how religion is represented in popular culture and how such representations can convey different understandings of religion and religiosity. The aim of the study is to examine how Midnight Mass represents catholic religion, with a particular focus on institutional structures and religious practices, as well as how existential questions are expressed through the characters’ relationships with religion and religiosity. The theoretical framework of the study is semiotics, which is used as an analytical tool to interpret how different signs are given meaning and how their meanings develop through their interaction with other signs and contexts. The study was conducted using qualitative thematic analysis and included all seven episodes of Midnight Mass. Through coding and thematization, recurring themes were identified and subsequently analyzed using semiotics as an analytical tool.

The results show that catholic religion is represented in several different ways. The church portrayed as a religious institution in which community, security and social support are created, while its institutional structures also provide opportunities for religious authority, the exercise of power and exclusion. Religious practices such as mass, the eucharist and confession are portrayed both as central aspects of catholic religion and as means of legitimizing actions and religious interpretations. The results also show that the characters’ different relationships with religion influence how they understand and respond to existential questions concerning suffering, death, guilt and meaning. For some characters, religious faith offers ideas of forgiveness, reconciliation, salvation and life after death, while others approach the same questions through doubt or a rejection of religion. The study therefore demonstrates that religion and religiosity are not represented in an unambiguous way but take on different meanings depending on how they are interpreted and used by the characters.