History Main / BadHabits

** In the very first story "The Blue Cross", Flambeau pretends to be a fellow clergyman so that he can rob Father Brown of the titular item of valuable religious regalia. Father Brown rumbles him because he [[CriticalResearchFailure argues for moral relativism]] during their conversation.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. In "The Siege", Kira and Dax have to get into the Bajoran Chamber of Ministers despite the planet being in the midst of a coup, with hostile soldiers searching for them. They dress as monks of the Vedek order because they have religous immunity and so won't be detained.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E9TheTimeMeddler "The Time Meddler"]]: The Meddling Monk is not actually a monk, but a time traveler bent on altering Earth's history.

* In the first ''VideoGame/Shank'' game, Angelo appears to be a SinisterMinister. But in the prequel co-op campaign, we learn he never actually was a priest. He just killed one non-chalantly, took their clothes and then posed as said priest. When Shank enters his church, one of his goons is also dressed like a nun.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E9TheTimeMeddler "The Time Meddler"]]: The Meddling Monk is not actually a monk, but a time traveller bent on altering Earth's history.

* ''Series/FatherTed''. Craggy Island can be viewed as a leper colony for the Irish Catholic Church's bad bargains. Father Ted Crilly is posted there for theft and embezzlement. Father Dougal because of the incident with the nuns at Blackrock. And Father Jack for being... Father Jack. Periodically other priests with personality issues join them. And their bullying, lecherous, supervisor, Bishop Brennan, is not much holier either.

* ''Film/{{Angel}}'': After [[SignificantHaircut shaving his head to disguise his appearance]], The Killer dresses as a Hare Krishna monk in order get close to Angel.

* ''WesternAnimation/HeavyMetal'': One of Captain Stern's many, ''many'' crimes include selling drugs dressed like a nun.

* An interesting case of this trope appears in''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', where ''Batman'' disguises himself as a priest at the beginning of one episode. To sit in at the deathbed confession of a sick mobhead to learn the name of the man hired to kill his parents, Joe Chill.

* Played straight in ''Anime/SamuraiChamploo'', with a fake priest (and fake European) who command Christians to produce more guns to avoid hell and reach paradise, so he can sell them. Of course he also kidnaps and threatens to kill (forcing her to marry him) at least one woman.

* In ''VideoGame/SummertimeSaga'', Sister Angelica is a nun with a warped idea of penance involving religiously-themed BDSM.

** The pre-eminent crime lord is the Deacon, who dresses and acts like, well, a deacon. It's not a disguise, however, but simply part of his motif.

* In ''Film/TheArtOfTheSteal'', the middleman in the deal for the stolen ''Gospel of St. James'' is called 'the Reverand' and dresses like a priest, including a clerical collar. However, there is no eveidence that he is actually a minister of religion.

* Donald J. Sobol (best known as the creator of ''Literature/EncyclopediaBrown'') wrote a [[Literature/TwoMinuteMysteries short story]] that ended up featuring one of these as the solution. A detective is in a small cafe drinking coffee when a bank robbery occurs, and three people--a fireman, a limo driver, and a nun--come running in to escape the havoc. They all order different drinks, with the nun asking for a cup of coffee; after the hubbub ends, the three leave the cafe. The detective asks for a second cup of coffee, prompting the waiter to give him "the mug without a lipstick stain." The gumshoe quickly determines that nuns aren't allowed to wear lipstick, and realizes that the "nun" was actually an accomplice to the robbery.

* OlderThanStea* In Creator/ChristopherMarlowe's ''Theatre/DoctorFaustus'', Faustus tells Mephistophilis to appear to him in the guise of a Franciscan friar.m: Done by the Duke of Vienna in Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/MeasureForMeasure''.

* In ''The Counterfeit Traitor'', a woman is tricked into betraying herself by a Gestapo agent who pretends to be a priest taking confessions. This was based on true incidents and the woman in real life (as in the movie) was shot by a firing squad. The confessional incident might be in the movie only.
* In ''Film/FinalJustice'', the bad guy dresses up as a monk and hides in a church, but his cover doesn't last long after he tries to brush off a hysterical woman in the confession booth with "sure, sure, whatever you want." So the cop after him is able to spot him, leading to a painfully long chase scene with the hero pursuing the villain in a monk outfit through the streets of Malta, followed by a painfully long chase scene with the hero pursuing the villain in a monk outfit in boats.
* ''Film/JohnWick'' walks into a Russian Orthodox church and casually kneecaps the priest, then [[BloodStainedGlassWindows shoots several mooks in the congregation]]. Then we see the 'priest' has tattooed knuckles and is swearing like a sailor. The church is actually a front for TheMafiya.
* ''Film/VetHard'': When freeing Koen out of prison, Bennie for some reason comes dressed as a priest into the prison. He is visibly nervous (it's unclear if this is because of the prison-escape action in general, or because the [[AxCrazy violent]] criminal SirSwearsALot Bennie has qualms about dressing as a priest) and fidgets a lot with the Christian cross on a chain he carries, which notably attracts the attention of a prison guard, who gives him a look seeming to question why a man of the Faith is treating the Christian cross so unrespectfully.
* Oh, boy, ''Film/SpyHard''. Agent WD-40 Dick Steele makes his way into the Our Lady of the Never Had The Pickle Convent to rescue the BondGirl of the film. He ends up stealing a habit to disguise himself as a nun. HilarityEnsues.
* In ''Film/BreakheartPass'', Rev. Peabody [[spoiler:is really an undercover Secret Service agent]].
* In ''Film/KindHeartsAndCoronets'', the VillainProtagonist Louis adopts the identity of an African clergyman in order to get close to the Reverend Lord Henry d'Ascoyne.
* In ''Film/TheGhoul'', Nigel Hartley is a thief disguised as a country parson as part of his plan to steal the jewel.
* ''Film/ShootOutAtMedicineBend'': Following a GoneSwimmingClothesStolen incident, the three soldiers are provided with new garb by a band of Brethren. After arriving in town and determining the situation, Devlin decides it is worthwhile to continue masquerading as pacifist Brethren.
* ''Film/VioletAndDaisy'': Violet and Daisy disguise themselves as nuns carrying pizza boxes for the first hit (hiding their guns in the latter).
* In ''Film/UpTheChastityBelt'', Lurkalot disguises himself as a friar in order to to smuggle Sir Coward into the castle. King Richard disguises himself as a nun to avoid being caught in the bedroom of the wife of a German knight.
* ''Film/{{Dobermann}}'': The Abbot is a member of Dobermann's who dresses as a priest. There is no evidence he actually is ordained, although he tries to act like a priest.
* In ''Film/TheConIsOn'', the contact buying Irina's drugs is an old woman dressed as a nun.
* ''Film/CorpusChristi'': Daniel, a young man fresh out of prison comes to a small town for a work-release job in a sawmill. He obtains a priest's cassock and collar, for no clear reason--to impress people? To get the occasional free meal? But when the town's regular priest, who happens to be an alcoholic, suddenly has to go into rehab, Daniel gets pressed into service as priest for the small town.
* ''Film/CatBallou''
* One of the cons run by cyclist/petty crook Mario Trantino in ''Film/TheGangThatCouldntShootStraight'' involves dressing in a (stolen) priest's uniform and collecting money for an (imaginary) orphanage back in Italy. His cover is blown when the police see him "in uniform" with his arm around his girlfriend, Angela Palumbo.
* In ''Film/SonOfAGun'', armed robbers Lynch and JR disguise themselves as priests when flying back from Melbourne to Perth.
* ''Film/{{Angel}}'': After [[SignificantHaircut shaving his head to disguise his appearance]], The Killer dresses as a Hare Krishna monk in order get close to Angel.
* ''Film/TheRisingOfTheMoon'': The third segment, "1921", has a political prisoner about to be executed during UsefulNotes/TheIrishRevolution. His allies have a complex scheme to help him escape, partly involving a pair of nuns. The authorities are completely taken in by these clever fakes, but after the nuns leave, the police sergeant muses "I didn't know nuns wore high heels."
* In ''Film/TheArtOfTheSteal'', the middleman in the deal for the stolen ''Gospel of St. James'' is called 'the Reverand' and dresses like a priest, including a clerical collar. However, there is no eveidence that he is actually a minister of religion.

* Done by Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo in his Abbe Busoni persona.

* Literature/FatherBrown, either deliberately or coincidentally, has examples as BookEnds:

* The villains in the final installment of the Literature/PennyParker series, ''[[Recap/PennyParkerBookSeventeenTheCryAtMidnight The Cry at Midnight]]'', disguise themselves as monks.
* Lin Chung dresses as an Anglican clergyman in ''The Castlemaine Murders'' to allow him to pass without comment in white society. Literature/PhryneFisher finds the sight of him in clerical garb quite arousing.

* This was a favourite trick of Franchise/{{Zorro}}.
* The Creator/RoaldDahl short story ''Parson's Pleasure'' is about a crooked antiques dealer who tours the English countryside disguised as a parson, in order to get himself invited into people's houses and scam them out of their most valuable possessions.

* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' supplement ''The Asylum and Other Tales'', adventure "The Mauretania". A Bolshevik agent pretends to be a priest to get close to a Russian count for an assassination attempt.

* OlderThanSteam: Done by the Duke of Vienna in Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/MeasureForMeasure''.
* In Creator/ChristopherMarlowe's ''Theatre/DoctorFaustus'', Faustus tells Mephistophilis to appear to him in the guise of a Franciscan friar.
* In the operetta ''Les Mousquetaires au Couvent'', the two titular musketeers dresses as priests to meet their beloveds, who are pupils in the titular convent.

* ''VideoGame/ConquestsOfTheLongbow'' has Robin Hood disguise himself as a monk in order to infiltrate a CorruptChurch or two.
* The Acolyte class' costume in ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' dresses up as a nun in the beginning of the game... and kills angels while still wearing that outfit. And after beating the game, you may buy the outfit as an alternate costume.
* A slight twist on the trope occurs in ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'' were the main character, Wei, infiltrates a Shaolin monastery by disguises himself as a monk, and talks his way past the real monks by spouting {{Ice Cream Koan}}s at them.

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* Holo in ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'' dresses as a nun occasionally. Or more accurately, she dresses in habit that is very nun-like without actually belonging to any denomination -- she wouldn't want actual Church officials to ask about her credentials. In Season 2, Amati refers to Holo as a "nun of convenience", having taken no formal vows or affiliated herself with any church. The novels state that women travellers do this to attempt to avoid trouble, assisted by nuns regularly hiding their denomination while travelling to avoid sectarian violence.

* The assassin pretending to be a priest who takes Manji's confession in the first chapter of ''Manga/BladeOfTheImmortal''.
* The reverend in the western (as in, with cowboys) {{Shojo}} manga ''Manga/{{Miriam}}''. He's not a real reverend, for one thing, having killed the real one and taken his place years ago. He's also a sexual predator who tried to take advantage of 17-year old protagonist Douglas when he took sanctuary in the church, ''and'' he works for a local crimelord. He eventually leads the protagonists into a trap... and reveals that ''he's'' the BigBad.
* Played straight in ''Anime/SamuraiChamploo'', with a fake priest (and fake European) who command Christians to produce more guns to avoid hell and reach paradise, so he can sell them. Of course he also kidnaps and threatens to kill (forcing her to marry him) at least one woman.
* Sonia Shaflnarz of ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler''. The characters continually call her 'Sister' despite knowing her name, and her acting nothing like an actual sister.
* In ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' Isaac and Miria dress up as a priest and a nun as one of their many, many crazy thieving schemes. [[IdiotHero Firo]] seems to completely buy it and apologizes for his earlier rude behavior, saying he didn't realize they were with the church.
* Nicholas D. Wolfwood in ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'', hired gun and man of the cloth. Though not without sin, at least he doesn't preach what he doesn't practice.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' occasionally invokes this for comic effect.
** A minor character, Miss Catherina in the Whiskey Peak arc uses her habit to pose as an innocent civilian to catch the protagonists off-guard before attacking with her poison-spraying cross.
** Played much less lightly with [[spoiler:Mother Caramel]] a traveling nun, miracle worker, and almost saintly mother figure who intervened in the Navy's execution of two notorious Giant pirates and who routinely takes in orphans to her orphanage in the Giant homeland. [[spoiler:In reality, she's a greedy old crone who sells the children in her care to the World Government, Cipher Pol, or pirates. The intervention with the giants? A trick to gain protection from their people AND show the world government what she could do.]] Ultimately she was killed by accident by her greatest find [[spoiler:Charlotte Lin-Lin, aka the Yonko Big Mom]] though she doesn't know it.
* In ''Anime/BatmanNinja'', Bruce, as a Westerner in medieval Japan, creates a cover identity as a Catholic monk. With a bat-shaped tonsure.

* Flintheart Glomgold dressed up as a nun in Creator/DonRosa's ''The Last Lord of Eldorado''. [[RuleOfFunny Humorously]], despite ''having a beard'', he was only discovered when he got into a fight, because the real nuns learned better style than that [[AllMonksKnowKungFu in their judo classes]]. (Scrooge wasn't fooled for an instant, though.)
* The hero of the franco-belgian comic ''ComicBook/{{Soda}}'' is a NYPD cop who is afraid to tell his mom his job, because she has heart problems, and keeps her believing her son is a clergyman. He usually switches his clerical outfit for street clothes as soon as possible, but more often than not things conspire to force him to keep it and do his police work dressed as a priest.

* In one ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'' story, the Penguin is disguised as a Russian Orthodox priest while undercover on a mission in Russia.

* In ''ComicBook/BatLash'' #1, Bat disguises himself as a monk in order to infiltrate a monastery. It turns out that the monastery has already being taken over by outlaws, and all the monks there are outlaws in disguise.
* ''ComicBook/TheFurtherAdventuresOfIndianaJones'': In #7, dealer in stolen artifacts (and rival to Indy) [=McIver=] is running his operation out of an Italian monastery with himself and his henchmen all disguised as monks. Indy himself dons a habit to infiltrate the operation.
* In ''ComicBook/JudgeColt'' #3, a PreacherMan raising funds for a church relief fund is revealed to be a ConMan who has been pulling the same scam in towns along the frontier.
* In ''ComicBook/ArakSonOfThunder'', Arak's ally Satyricus is a cowardly and lecherous [[FaunsAndSatyrs satyr]] who frequently disguises himself as a monk as the robe concealed his goat's feet.

* In ''ComicStrip/TerryAndThePirates'', Cap'n Blaze and his gang disguise themselves as monks when they set up an opium farm inside a monastery.

* The unique version of the Master who appeared in the ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' Eighth Doctor comic stories was initially seen posing as a street preacher in early-twenty-first-century London, and his long-term plan involved setting up a PathOfInspiration to corrupt humanity and turn them into {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s.

* In Creator/CharlieChaplin film ''Film/ThePilgrim'', Charlie, an escaped convict on the run, puts on the first clothes he's able to steal. Naturally, it's a Protestant minister's vestments.
* One of Creator/RobertMitchum's most iconic roles was in the 1955 film noir ''Film/TheNightOfTheHunter'', in which he plays the "Reverend" Harry Powell, a thief, con artist, and serial killer who poses as a priest and marries his executed cellmate's widow to get his hands on the man's hidden loot, but finds himself stymied by the dead man's young children.
* ''Film/Hitman1998'', starring Jet Li, features an assassin dressed as a priest, who carries rosary beads which doubles as a garotte wire, and hides grenades in his robes.
* In ''Film/TheWrathOfGod'', Mitchum again plays a phony priest, this time a turn-of-the-century bandit in a BananaRepublic south of the border. We discover that he is not ''really'' a priest when he [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome whips a Tommy gun out of a guitar case and riddles a bar full of soldiers with hot lead]]. We later learn that he also carries a pistol in his [[Literature/TheBible Bible]] and a switchblade in his crucifix.
* ''Film/JamesBond'': Q dresses up as a Greek Orthodox priest (complete with false beard) in ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly''.

* In ''Film/TwoMulesForSisterSara'', Creator/ShirleyMacLaine's character dresses up as a nun while escaping from the French. It also helps her get help from Creator/ClintEastwood's character.
** Another Clint Eastwood example: in ''Film/TheEnforcer'', Harry Callahan and his female partner go into a church during their investigation into a terrorist group. The female partner suddenly shoots a nun, having noticed that she was wearing bright red nail polish. Turns out she was also wearing a pump-action shotgun.
* Whoopi Goldberg hid out as a nun in a convent from hit men in the movie ''Film/SisterAct''.
* ''Film/CharliesAngelsFullThrottle'' has the Angels disguised as nuns. And that's the sound of Theology flying out the window.
* At the end of ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl'', Jack Sparrow is [[LongList having his crimes announced]] just before he is about to be hanged. These include "impersonating [[TheVicar a cleric of the Church of England]]", provoking a smile of amused reminiscence from Jack.
* The basic premise of ''Film/NunsOnTheRun'' is that the "nuns on the run" aren't really nuns. (They also aren't really women, making this a combination of Bad Habits and DisguisedInDrag.)
* Done twice in the ''Film/CannonballRun'' movies. In the first movie Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. play a pair of racers who dress up as Catholic priests, and in the second two women dressed as nuns (they're showgirls in a production who were at a restaurant, still in costume) end up accompanying two men dressed as soldiers (who are disguised for an edge talking to the police). The men slowly realize that these women don't behave quite like nuns...
* ''Film/TheManchurianCandidate'': The [[ManchurianAgent brainwashed assassin]] disguises himself as a priest to assassinate the Presidential candidate of one of the leading parties of the United States.

* ''Film/{{Assassins}}'' (1995). Contract killer Robert Rath (driving a [[NotMyDriver stolen taxi]]) is searching for rival hitman Miguel Bain. On hearing that a priest wants a cab to take him to the airport, Rath instantly says "That's him", implying that it's an old assassin's trick.

* ''Mafia!'' (1998). "[[Film/{{Scarface 1983}} Say hello to my little friend]]." The very tall priest has a midget assassin hidden under his coat.

* ''Film/TheFourMusketeers'' (1974). Milady de Winter dresses as a nun to get into a nunnery and strangle Constance.
* In his introductory scene in ''Film/FaceOff'', Castor Troy disguises himself as a priest in order to plant a biological bomb in the Los Angeles Convention Center. He then takes a little extra time to dance to a choir singing the Hallelujah chorus and grope a choir-girl.
-->'''Castor Troy:''' You know, I never really enjoy the Messiah. In fact I think it's fucking ''boring''. But your voice makes even ''hack'' like Handel... seem like a ''genius''.
* In ''Film/TopHat'' [[spoiler:Bates disguises himself as a priest so he can void the marriage between Dale and Alberto. Dale is only marrying Alberto out of desperation because she wants to stop herself from loving her friend's husband- well, who she thinks is her friend's husband.]]
* This guise fails in ''Film/TheGodfatherPartIII'' as the old mafia boss recognises the assassin sent to kill his guest Michael Corleone.
* Kambei's introductory scene in ''Film/SevenSamurai'' has him rescuing a child from a hostage situation by cutting off his topknot and having monks shave his head and lend him some robes. In his guise as a monk, he brings food so that the hostage-taker will lower his guard, and then rushes in and kills the hostage-taker and saves the child.
* In ''Film/TheSeventhSeal'', [[TheGrimReaper Death]] disguises himself as a priest to trick the knight into telling him his next move in the [[ChessWithDeath the game of chess for the knight's life]].
* ''Film/TheMaskOfZorro'': In his first time out in the mask, the [[LegacyCharacter new]] Franchise/{{Zorro}} runs into a church for sanctuary, and the priest, an old friend of the original Zorro, hides him in the confessional booth. He find himself improvising his way through a confession with [[LoveInterest Elena]], who is there to confess, well, feelings of lust for Zorro.
* ''Film/AngelsAndDemons''. The Illuminati killer dresses as a priest when dumping a fatally stabbed victim in the middle of St Peter's Square.

* In the Creator/PamGrier movie ''Film/BlackMamaWhiteMama'', Grier's character has escaped prison transport, still chained together with another inmate. They waylay two nuns and rob them of their habits, which they then put on on top of their prison clothes. The habits have wide enough sleeves to hide the chain connecting their wrists as long as they walk close together.
* In ''Film/{{Marmoulak}}'', Reza the Lizard, a notorious criminal, spends most of the movie disguised as a mullah while on the run from the law after escaping prison.

A villain who actually ''is'' a priest is probably a SinisterMinister.

Compare NunTooHoly, where a character is ostensibly part of a religious order, but doesn't seem too concerned with observing its tenets or restrictions.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', Batman disguises himself as a priest at the beginning of one episode to sit in at the deathbed confession of a sick mobhead to learn the name of the man hired to kill his parents, Joe Chill.

* ''Franchise/OnePiece'' occasionally invokes this for comic effect, such as the minor character, Miss Catherina in the Whiskey Peak arc using her habit to pose as an innocent civilian to catch the protagonists off-guard before attacking with her poison-spraying cross.