Sexy Priest

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    Father Remington is the very picture of chastity.

    Samantha: He is hot.
    Carrie: He is a priest!
    Samantha: He is a HOT priest!

    —Sex and the City

    Basically the male counterpart of Naughty Nuns: the handsome, attractive, usually young priest. Has a long tradition in western culture, dating at least to the Middle Ages. The priest is usually Roman Catholic for the added Forbidden Fruit aspects of celibacy, but there's still room for the handsome young pastor in Protestant settings as well.

    Depending on the viewpoint of the characters, this can be played for sympathy or antipathy: Either the priest is a innocent and charismatic Good Shepherd who just can't help attracting the attentions of women (and sometimes men, too) or he is a sinister Casanova in a Corrupt Church, in which case it is often a trait of the Sinister Minister.

    See also: The Vicar. Can overlap with Nun-Too-Holy. May lead into Hot for Preacher.

    In terms of rank, the Authority Tropes arguably equal are Badass Preacher, Corrupt Corporate Executive, Irish Priest, Landlord, Preacher Man, Pedophile Priest, Schoolteachers, Sinister Minister and The Vicar. For the next step down, see Student Council President. For the next step up, see Dean Bitterman.

    Examples of Sexy Priest include:

    Anime and Manga

    Comic Books

    • The men in Sin City once sent a priest to Claudia's hen night. The women mistook him for a stripper.
    • While Your Mileage May Vary on his attractiveness and on the legitimacy of the arc itself, Nightcrawler did train to become a priest, and many a girl dig that nummy Fuzzy Elf...

    Film

    • A quote from the movie Raising Helen:

    Pastor Dan Parker: I'm a sexy man of God, and I know it.

    • The film The Devils is in part about sexual obsession, nuns, a priest and a walled town in France.
      • Based partially on a real life event, poor guy.
    • The young priest from the film Contact.
    • Philip from Pirates of the Caribbean, complete with Shirtless Scene.
    • Nicholas Cage's character Castor Troy was disguised as a priest in Face/Off and does a sexy dance in front of some schoolgirls. Gotta Love Nicholas Cage.
    • Russell Crowe's character Cort in The Quick and the Dead.
    • Joaquin Phoenix as Abbe du Coulmier in Quills. Teaches Kate Winslet's character how to read and tries to "cure" the Marquis de Sade, both of whom obviously want to get into his frock.

    Abbe: I'm not a beautiful young prospect ripe for corruption.
    Marquis: Don't be so sure.

    • Paul McGann, who has his own personal Estrogen Brigade, played a vicar in Lesbian Vampire Killers.
    • Young Jean-Paul Belmondo in Léon Morin, prêtre. A young atheist woman confronts him. She ends up beaten by the obvious power of faith (and a something else beyond)
    • Camerlengo Patrick McKenna from Angels & Demons. Ewan Mcgregor makes a damn fine priest.
    • Gael Garcia Bernal's Father Amaro from The Crime of Father Amaro. Bades on a novel.
    • Gabriel Byrne in Stigmata.
    • Montgomery Clift in Hitchcock's I Confess. The movie was a flop as a result of the controversy over the romantic themes in the film involving his character.
    • Linus Roache in Priest, playing gay Father Greg.

    Folklore

    • Also, the bogatyr (similar to "knight errant") Alyosha Popovich from Russian folk legends may fit. While not a priest himself (he's a popovich, or priest's son: the Russian Orthodox Church allows married men to become priests), his image bears many of the stereotypes associated with priests at the time (e.g., he's cunning and well-spoken, and relies more on wits than strength). Besides his valiant deeds, Alyosha is known for his often dubious amorous escapades. Like that one time when he "disgraced" a fair maiden and received severe fisticuffs from her angry brothers. Or when he tried to trick the wife of his fellow bogatyr, Dobrynya Nikitich, into marrying him by telling her that Dobrynya's dead. It's important to note that Alyosha also gets the girl (a beautiful, loving wife) at the end.
    • In medieval Europe, the supposed sexual endowment of priests was standard dirty-joke fodder:
      • One joke had a wife threatening to leave her husband because of his physical inadequacy: the priest arranged to have him "inspected" by the women of the parish, through a hole in the church door. The man admitted to the priest that his wife's accusations were correct—he was, in fact, physically most men's lesser—so the two arranged for the priest, not the husband, to display himself through the hole. All the women lined up to offer their opinions -- "That's not too bad," "What's she complaining about?", "That's more than my husband has!", until one woman objected: "That's the priest! I'd know him anywhere!"
      • Kramer and Sprenger, in their notorious witch-hunting manual Malleus Maleficarum, accepted just such a dirty joke as a factual report of witches' stealing men's "members":

    "And what, then, is to be thought of those witches who in this way sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as twenty or thirty members together, and put them in a bird’s nest, or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many and is a matter of common report? It is to be said that it is all done by devil’s work and illusion, for the senses of those who see them are deluded in the way we have said. For a certain man tells that, when he had lost his member, he approached a known witch to ask her to restore it to him. She told the afflicted man to climb a certain tree, and that he might take which he liked out of the nest in which there were several members. And when he tried to take a big one, the witch said: You must not take that one; adding, because it belongs to a parish priest."

    Literature

    • Gösta Berling in Gösta Berling's Saga is at one point this, at least at some points in the narrative. (It's complicated.)
    • Older Than Print: There are at least a few examples of both types in the Decameron.
    • Mentioned in Gargantua: "The tower of a cloister makes the woman of the village more fertile."
    • In Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Bean Trees, Taylor mentions that whenever she sees Father William, she has to resist the urge to flirt with him.
    • The Thorn Birds—Father Ralph de Bricassart is pretty much the trope codifier, if not the trope maker. To a lesser extent, his and Meggie's son Dane was planning to follow in his footsteps.
    • Father Dominic from The Mediator series by Meg Cabot is in his sixties, but Suze the heroine, frequently notices how handsome he must have been and actually still is "in that Sean Connery way".
    • Julien Sorel, the Anti-Hero / Villain Protagonist of The Red and The Black.
    • There is a medieval (probably 12th century) Latin poem called the "Altercatio Phyllidis et Flora" about whether knights or priests make better lovers. Guess who wins?
    • The Canterbury Tales features a Friar as one of the pilgrims who loves associating with the fairer sex, and is kind enough to perform marriages which he has made necessary.
    • Medieval literature in general has tons of these—in jealous husband/sexy adulterous wife stories, the wife often takes up with the local priest. Hilarity Ensues, generally.
    • A number of these in the Deryni works. Bishop Denis Arilan's face is described as "handsome", and then-Monsignor (later Bishop) Duncan McLain prompts this exchange between two ladies at his cousin's ducal court:

    "...I do hope he gets back in time for dinner. You've seen him, haven't you?"
    "Ummm," the blond woman sighed approvingly. "I certainly have. What a pity he's a priest."

    • In A Song of Ice and Fire a minor character claims he used to be one of these, since a wandering priest can be quite exotic and exciting if you've never left your dad's cow farm.
    • Emilio Sandoz in Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is a particularly sympathetic example.
    • Father Lorenzo Quart in Arturo Pérez-Reverte's The Seville Communion.

    "They are even told that ... certain intimacies and unchaste acts proposed by the spiritual director are the pathway to perfection."

    • The Monk Ambrosio is described as being very attractive, and is obviously popular with the ladies of his congregation.
    • Aramis from The Three Musketeers and sequels.
    • Inverted in The Hunchback of Notre Dame: it's not that the priest is attractive, it's that he's desperately in love with Esmeralda.

    Live Action TV

    • Samantha from Sex and the City lusted after one of these. She nicknamed him "Friar Fuck".
    • Keeping Up Appearances has a sexy (and married) young vicar by the name of Michael. Besides having to fight off Hyacinth's constant attempts to invite him to her social functions, he also has to fight off the advances of her sister Rose.
    • Father Peter Clifford as played by Stephen Tompkinson in Ballykissangel was seen as an example of this. In fact in a 1997 Fake Crossover for Comic Relief with The Vicar of Dibley the plot centred around Reverend Geraldine Granger attempting to get a kiss from Father Clifford.
      • And after Father Clifford left the town and the show, he was replaced in by a series of handsome young priests, culminating in a dashing ex-Australian Soap Opera star.
    • The handsome Latino priest in the second season premiere and finale for The Sarah Connor Chronicles may qualify.
    • Nathan Fillion as Caleb from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if you can get past the creep factor.
    • Supernatural's Winchester brothers briefly pose as priests in order to investigate a mysterious death. This is taken further in the season's gag reel when the actors show up in sleeveless priest outfits reminiscent of male strippers.
    • There seems to be a subtext to the relationship between the priest on the second season of Mad Men, Father Gill (Colin Hanks; yes, as in Tom), and Peggy Olson; he's definitely a more liberal priest than the parish is used to. However, Peggy cuts off contact with Father Gill and the whole Church in general in the last episode of the season (the one during the Cuban Missile Crisis), and he hasn't been seen since.
    • There was an early 1990s Saturday Night Live sketch where a woman (Julia Sweeney) goes to confess her sins in a confession booth. The priest (played by Alec Baldwin) then pulls back the screen and reveals that he's very young and handsome.
    • Jane fell in love with one in Coupling, and trying to accept the no sex before marriage lifestyle was something of a Growing the Beard for the character. Then it turns out Susan knew him before he was a priest...

    You had sex with my boyfriend! I haven't even had sex with him yet!

      • He wasn't a priest, he was a religious broadcaster on the radio only, Steve just incorrectly assumed he was a vicar.
    • Father Philip Callaghan from Poltergeist: The Legacy.
    • Rickety Cricket in Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia—before the gang ruined his life, that is.
    • Book of Firefly. He's by no means young, either, so he's also an example of Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!.
    • A female one of these was recently seen on What Not to Wear. Especially after the makeover, but before it, she was pretty cute, too.
    • Brother Justin Crowe on Carnivale. Of course, since he's also a Sinister Minister, the women who are drawn to him are all troubled in some way and he is not at all hesitant to exploit their weaknesses for his own benefit...
    • Father Phil had a flirtation with Carmella in The Sopranos
    • Father Jack Landry in the 2009 remake of V has a Shirtless Scene in one episode and he had a history of touring in Iraq.
    • More cute than "sexy" but Father Mulcahy from Mash wore a tight black t-shirt with his usual army uniform sometimes and looked very nice indeed.
    • In an episode of Spin City, the men play a prank on the women by cancelling the male stripper who was to attend Claudia's bachelorette party and send a Catholic priest instead. The priest happened to be rather handsome. Guess what happened.
    • Invoked in Penn & Teller when they meet a self-described "porn pastor." It's not quite what it sounds like.
    • Cesare Borgia is definitely this, and moreover he never lets the fact that he's a Cardinal get in the way of his sexual conquests (it must run in the family, seeing as he's the son of the Pope).
    • Caleb has to consider his faith after flirting with Annie in 90210.

    Music

    • There's nothing true here yet, but the blue man in this sure looks like a sexy priest, judging by the robes.
      • The blue man's name is Kaito, by the way.
        • This troper believes they meant purple (Gackupo) as Kaito's clothing does not look anywhere similar to clothing of the clergy, an entertainer maybe. Gackupo on the other hand does seem to be dressed like a priest of some sort.
          • Gakupo is actually an educator and is dressed like one. Kaito, however, is wearing robes, which could mean either. The gold and jewels imply that he is either some sort of thief (gypsy, maybe) or a holy man.
    • Zhaan of Farscape is a female version as a high level Delvian priestess. She differs from most versions of this trope in that Delvians are VERY sensual beings and being a priest/priestess seems to involve enhanced sexual experiences.

    Theatre

    • Father Welsh in Martin Mcdonagh's The Lonesome West. It isn't stated outright that he is "sexy", but he is at least attractive enough to make seventeen-year-old Girleen to fall madly in love with him.

    Video Games

    Western Animation

    Web Original

    Real Life

    • The Witch craze in Loudun, France, was started when an amorous priest was brought on trial for witchcraft. Said priest had earlier on publicly humiliated some local bishop named Armand Jean du Plessis and who went on to become Cardinal some time later. It is the basis of the movie The Devils mentioned above.
    • There's a calendar featuring male Mormon missionaries. The things one learns from Stephen Fry...
    • In American Roman Catholic popular culture, such priests are known as "Father What-A-Waste".
    • Father Cutie is not exactly hard on the eyes, and he seems to know it.
    • The Reverend Ida Auken of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark, also a Socialist MP and current Danish Minister for the Environment. This being a Lutheran church, not only is a woman allowed to be a priest, but they're allowed to marry; her mother was also a priest (and a Social Democratic MP).
    • Pope Benedict XVI's private secretary, Monsignor Georg Gänswein, is known throughout the Vatican as "Beautiful George" because of his good looks. Possibly the only Vatican official in history to attract the attention of the tabloids and the papparazzi (that's the photographers, NOT Sun-speak for the current Pontiff).
    • Father Jonathan Morris, a Fox News analyst and contributor, is blond-haired, blue-eyed, and quite adorable.
    • Muslim example: Abdullah Gymnastiar, an Indonesian da'i (quite close to "minister"), well-known to Malay-speaking public. Every Muslim is allowed to marry, and he's married (twice).
    • Zachary Quinto's Before/After video has him dressed up as one. Several comments from fans are of how they are going to hell for think that.
    • Karol Woltyla, better known as Pope John Paul II. Since he became famous only as pope, an older man, he also falls under I Was Quite a Looker.
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