A few of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdfkD6DErjQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7ZiDonq0dQ&t=6s
Favorite Movie Priests
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
His performance in IN Golden Pond was exceptional and the Lilly pad scene had to be his best performance ever.
For those who can’t recall the scene:
Kermit’s character, Fr. Anthony, had finally broken through to a wayward painted turtle named Fast Eddie. Eddie’s life was one of fast lane antics including mud wrestling, poison ivy and profanity.
There, as the evening sky descended upon the pond, Eddie reluctantly confessed his sins to Father, and received absolution.
The moment ended with Vladimir, the barn owl, swooping down upon Eddie and carrying him away into oblivion.
I still tear up just thinking about it.
In the 1986 film The Mission, Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro play Jesuit missionary priests and do so quite well. Fr.Daniel Berrigan played a role in the film as well. It’s one of my favorite faith-based films. It depicts a time in which Jesuits were truly doing God’s work.
Don’t know about favorite since many were simply good depictions of their rolls. I was impressed with Rex Harrison as Julius II as he seemed exactly to fit the real person according to available records.
Father Mulcahy in the MASH TV show. Largely because actor William Christopher had to fight the producers and Alan Alda to make the character a more three-dimensional character. He also trained with local priests to appear more authentic (when in the early years the show’s staff didn’t care in the least how authentic he looked), and pushed to make his religious faith an important part of his storylines. Again, fighting against the show’s creators to do so.
In the novel Mulcahy is greatly respected and the surgeons ask him “to put in the fix” when they have done all that they can do for a patient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejcFq01PvCE
For Greater Glory Peter O’ Toole’s character, Catholic priest, was very believable. He carried an aire of piety in his short scenes. I believe that it was his last role in his lengthy career.
My favorite priest in a movie was Jim C. in The Passion of the Christ.
Priest, Prophet and King.
The Christ, on Holy Thursday night, instituting the sacrifice of the Mass and establishing the great command to Do this in memory of me.
His Body. His Blood. Our means to become children of God.
Listening to Jim’s testimonials, as he rose to the pinnacle of actors to portray men of the cloth, convinces me by far, that his sufferings and prayers during the shoot was for much more than a motion picture, rather, a monumental work of mercy and conversion that will be available for generations to come.
Favorite movie priest?
Jesus Christ.
Trevor Howard, Fr Collins in “Ryan’s Daughter”
Unfortunately there were three jarring and historically nonsensical scenes in the film The Scarlet and the Black.
First a very senior Vatican cleric tells Mgr O’Flaherty that “some here doubt your orthodoxy” merely because of his work to help escaped POWs, Jews and other refugees from the Nazis.
Later Pope Pius XII tells him that some are complaining that the pope doesn’t confront the Nazis more strongly. Nobody was saying that at the time. It wasn’t until long after his death that some anticatholics began saying that, at first indirectly via the East German play The Deputy about a fictional pope, and culminating in John Cornwell’s preposterous 1999 book “Hitler’s Pope” turning real history upside down.
And most grievous is the scene where Mgr O’Flaherty at great risk to his life, disguised as a German officer, gets into a prison cell where the Gestapo are holding a priest condemned to death, in order to administer him the Last Rites. The priest informs Mgr O’Flaherty that there’s no need for that as he has already confessed his sins directly to God, pointing to a rough cross he had scratched on the wall. And O’Flaherty goes along with rhis thoroughly protestant idea! Instead, O’Flaherty gives the priest an enormous wooden rosary which he bizarrely was wearing around his neck under his German uniform, and they say one Hail Mary together.
I also found Gregory Peck’s deadpan/wry face too different from the real Mgr O’Flaherty’s cheeky Irish grin. Peck’s “Irish” accent also comes and goes randomly throughout the film.
They are all good
Hands down–no doubt in my mind–the best of all these screen priests was the Cure’ in Song of Bernadette. I’ve even used that movie to give non-Catholics a better idea of what an actual Catholic priest is like. That speech that he gives to St. Bernadette when she mentions that she just wants to be a maid–with Steiner’s unmatched score playing–brings tears to my eyes every time: “My dear child, to you the Blessed Virgin has condescended ….”