<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Don&amp;#039;t know if you caught it, but the Clan of the Red Beanie recently decided that the biggest problem it&amp;#039;s had over the past decade or so was not being an international conspiracy to obstruct justice, or its multifarious financial shenanigans, or the pope&amp;#039;s WikiLeaks butler, or even the overweening hubris behind its unconscionable meddling in domestic politics over here, but the fact that its messaging strategy was bad. To that end, it hired a Fox News reporter who also is a member of Opus Dei \u2014 a perfect merging of reactionary church with reactionary state, to my mind \u2014 to shine up Holy Mother Church&amp;#039;s image out there in the rest of the world.... He went to St. Peter&amp;#039;s tomb and prayed about the decision. Then he went to St. Paul&amp;#039;s tomb and prayed some more. &amp;quot;It wasn&amp;#039;t a lightning bolt,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;It was more of a gut feeling.&amp;quot; Jesus, you should pardon the expression, that&amp;#039;s a tough interview process. Those guys haven&amp;#039;t been in charge of the company for 2000 years. This prompted me to recall the days when the HMC&amp;#039;s image didn&amp;#039;t need buffing, the days of wise-crackin&amp;#039; Irish priests and singing nuns. Father Crosby. Reverend Mother Rosalind Russell. That&amp;#039;s the way to sell a religion, kids. So, to open the general hooley in comments below: Who are your favorite movie religious types? (No movie Jesuses, though. Just middle-management types.) As always, my top three choices herewith.... 1) Father Crosby, Going My Way: The archetype. Crack golfer. Tamer of troubled youth. Guilt-tripping raiser of money from the local sharpies. Tura-lura-lura, beeyotches. 2) Sister Mary Tyler Moore, Change Of Habit: Only Sally Field was a more unlikely nun. Sister MTM manages to stay true to her vows despite the disturbing presence of Elvis Presley as an idealistic pair of tight pants that went to med school and now works in a ghetto clinic. Doc does not sing. Sister Mary does not...well, she just doesn&amp;#039;t, that&amp;#039;s all. 3) Monsignor Robert DeNiro, True Confessions: The dark side of the 1950&amp;#039;s L.A. papist crowd of which Der Bingle was a big part. (Monsignor Bob is also a crack golfer.) In a beautifully muted part, Monsignor Bob is the clerical bureaucrat-as-adding machine who gets caught up in a fictionalized account of the Black Dahlia murder case and finds his way back to his true calling \u2014 being a parish priest in the middle of the desert. He doesn&amp;#039;t need to hire a Foxbot to show him the way. Have at it. Pax vobiscum, y&amp;#039;all. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14637/religious-movie-characters-10059392/>