TV to Focus on Atypical in Clergy’s Lives, but There’s a Healthy Homily

Why is there a rash of programs this fall featuring clergy people in their public roles and private lives? Based on precedent, what can we expect as the new season unfolds?

Three new programs will feature clergy. ABC begins a new drama about a Catholic priest, “Nothing Sacred” (“Catholics vs. ABC,” Morning Report, July 19) and brings back “Soul Man,” a comedy starring Dan Aykroyd as a minister. United Paramount Network’s new comedy “Good News” will fuse gospel music with a young pastor who unexpectedly takes over his congregation. The WB network will continue the show it began last spring, “7th Heaven,” which focuses on the family life of a minister. Even noncommercial television has been infected by the need to dramatize clergy people in an unconventional light. A series on PBS will feature Sister Wendy Beckett as the host of “Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting.”

Television has historically portrayed clergy on a spectrum between two polar opposites. On the one end was the wise, avuncular and pleasing Rev. Alden in “Little House on the Prairie,” who preached, consoled and advised, rarely offended--and never transgressed. At the other end was the brash, debonair and doubting Father Ralph de Bricassart in “The Thorn Birds,” who lived a 40-year sinful relationship with beautiful Meggie and violated virtually every priestly vow.

In between those extremes, television has had an uncanny ability to portray accurately, albeit superficially, much of what a clergyman does during his 24-hour day--ritual surrounding life-cycle events, counseling personal crises and taking stands on social issues.

What can we anticipate from the rush of programs in the new season that will feature clergy? Undoubtedly, they will continue TV’s propensity for capturing both the overt and more subtle aspects of their work. But they will depart from earlier models in a more extreme peeling away of the inner life, personal conflicts and foibles of clergy people. What had previously been an occasional exposure of conflicted and hypocritical ministers and rabbis, as in a “Picket Fences” portrayal of a priest with a fetish for women’s shoes, will become a regular and featured uncovering of the personal contradictions of clergy on the programs of commercial television. On any given night, on one channel or the other, a priest, minister or rabbi will be doubting his faith in God, his calling or his sexual fidelity.

A handout from ABC regarding “Nothing Sacred” teases the viewer with, “It’s tough being a priest in the ‘90s. Just ask Father Ray (Kevin Anderson).” “Soul Man” stars Dan Aykroyd as the Rev. Mike Weber, a widower father who rides a motorcycle and lusts in more than the heart after Brigette, a comely reporter. His own kids are smart mouths and steal communion wine.

Even before appearing, “Nothing Sacred” has drawn the ire of some religious spokesmen. A Catholic anti-defamation group demanded that “Nothing Sacred,” a Disney production, be pulled from ABC because of its “sick look” at priests, and the Catholic League’s vice president Bernadette Brady adds that “they are belittling what is sacred.”

All work and even sacred callings have their share of deviants. But most practitioners are not. For this reason, there is apprehension that this fall’s television programming will elevate the “Thorn Birds” model over that of “Little House on the Prairie”

Some of the negativity has been brought on ourselves. Tele-ministry scandals, money laundering and sexual improprieties constitute a clerical graft that is both ecumenical and more creatively deviant than stealing from the charity box. Though not representative of the bulk of clergy, these moral failings have been the behavior of too many clergy.

Less apparent is the paradoxical desire of laypeople to relate to their spiritual leaders as “regular guys,” but at the same time needing to regard them as different and apart. This fall’s television revelation of both the public and private lives of clergy intuitively depends on a viewer market that combines both public respect and curiosity.

Clergy is the last major profession whose private life and inner conflicts have not already been exposed on television. This fall’s offerings penetrate the secret life of clergy with the candidness previously applied to doctors on “ER” and “Chicago Hope,” and to lawyers on “L.A. Law.” The anti-authoritarianism that permeates all of America cannot be expected to exempt the last protected authority figures. Our turn has come.

Increased media attention to the public role and private life of clergy has its healthy side. The layperson sees a pastor on the screen in ways that listening to sermons and proclamations will not accomplish. Rather than regarding a minister as theologically and morally flawless, the parishioner’s new view from the pew will expand to incorporate not a religious legislator (you should do this, not do that) but a religious facilitator who may not have all the answers but can raise the questions and show a method of searching.