History Main / SinisterMinister

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[[caption-width-right:231:[[BlatantLies Beata Maria, you know I am a righteous man...]]]]

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[[caption-width:231:[[BlatantLies Beata Maria, you know I am a righteous man...]]]]

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[[caption-width:350:[[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Frollo]] is a righteous man.]]

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[[caption-width:231:[[BlatantLies Beata Maria, you know I am a righteous man...]]]]

** You forgot to mention that he also qualifies as a [[SexyPriest Sexy Priest]]. Which makes him even [[DracoInLeatherPants more disturbing]].

** The CHURCH of FinalFantasyTactics

** A reasonably good case could be made for much of the Church in the Nasuverse. Of it's three representatives we've seen, the other two were noted as exceptions to the rule, while Kotomine was clearly a whole different ball of wax. The church in ''{{Tsukihime}}'' had no problem whatsoever [[TheyWouldCutYouUp performing horrific experiments]] on the effectively immortal [[spoiler:Ciel]], one of their own members. Though they might be {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s, or just standard KnightTemplar.

* Girolamo Savonarola in ''[=~Assassin's Creed~=] 2'' who not only is an extremist preacher like his real-life counterpart, but also is willing to [[spoiler:use the Apple of Eden to subjugate Florence and spread his agenda.]]

* Girolamo Savonarola in ''[=~Assassin's Creed~=] 2'' who not only is an extremist preacher like his real-life counterpart, but also is willing to [[spoiler:use the ancient artifact to subjugate Florentines and spread his agenda]] and seems to be [[spoiler: a supporter of Rodrigo Borgia]].

* Pryrates from ''MemorySorrowAndThorn'' is a priest as well as the most cliched EvilSorcerer one can imagine. He lives in a tower which no one dares to enter, he wears scarlet robes, has a shaved head, [[KickTheDog kills a puppy]] as one of his [[EstablishingCharacterMoment character introduction scenes]] and has such evil vibes that the hero notices him as a bad guy right away. And the [[XanatosSucker King]] doesn't care at all.

[[caption-width:231:[[BlatantLies Beata Maria/You know I am a righteous man...]]]]

Men of the cloth serve a plethora of roles in all branches of media, both modern and ancient. They may be wise counselors, corrupt bureaucrats or confused and bumbling but generally well-intentioned old duffers. But every once in a while, a preacher crops up who is intimidating, charismatic and completely devoid of morality. These archetypal villains typically serve as the BigBad in their respective worlds, controlling vast hordes of starry-eyed True Believers or manipulating the inner workings of their Church. He is often the epitome of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant clergyman, clean-cut and perpetually smiling while delivering sermons that alternate between gentle reminders of the importance of virtue and scalding fire-and-brimstone rants commanding their followers to rise and smite heathens in the name of the Lord, amen.

[[HunchbackOfNotreDame http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SinisterMinister_9357.PNG]]

->''"To my right: a row of ministers - more sinisters than ministers!"''

Also a song by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Contrast [[GoodShepherd]]

* Father Cornello from very early ''FullMetalAlchemist''.
* Father Enrico Pucci from ''JoJosBizarreAdventure'' is a corrupt priest who works at a prison and uses his status and special ability to gain many of the guards and prisoners as followers. It is revealed later that he set up the protagonist, Jolyne, to get framed at the beginning of Part 6. His ultimate goal was to achieve the power of "Heaven" and create the vampire Dio's perfect universe [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans "for the good of mankind"]].
* Bishop and High Inquisitor Mozgus of ''{{Berserk}}'' is very much one of these.
* Father Enrico Maxwell from ''{{Hellsing}}'' definitely qualifies, being both self-serving hypocrite and a ruthless KnightTemplar. He thankfully never gets contact with regular churchgoers, though.
** [[spoiler: Alexander Anderson, a Knight Templar up to eleven, puts him down. That has to say something.]]
* The Cardinal [[spoiler:Rolo vi Britannia]] in ''CodeGeass: NightmareOfNunnally'' has shades of this. While the Geass Directorate/Cult was not explicitly religious in the original series, it was much more so in the manga, with Emperor Charles declaring a religious state at the climax. The Cardinal serves as the moutpiece for the religion throughout, and plans to kill Nunnally, Charles, and Lelouch to become the Demon King.

* Bishop Antony Lilliman in ''VForVendetta'' was a child molester, as well as a cheerleader for the fascist regime.
* All Father D'Aronique, and sundry other clergy of the Grail conspiracy from {{Preacher}}. Apparently entirely sincere in his beliefs. Most of the Grail personnel who appear are KnightTemplars though.
* Deacon Blackfire from the {{Batman}} series ''The Cult''.
* Cardinal Patrick Henry Roark from ''SinCity'', the most nefarious member of the city's CorruptChurch and just one member of the series resident powerful BigScrewedUpFamily.
* The Reverend William Stryker, an Comicbook/{{X-Men}} villain. He and his CorruptChurch believe that mutants are demons from Hell, and has an army of mercenaries to carry out his will. He first appeared in the graphic novel ''God Loves, Man Kills'', on which X2 is loosely based, except Stryker is an [[AdaptationDecay Army General]]. His reappearance in recent times was due to the success of the movie, though his romance with Lady Deathstrike was [[CrackPairing just plain odd]] outside the movie's context.
** You know it's easier to just say that if there's a priest in X-Men who is not Nightcrawler, chances are he's going to be evil. An apparent byproduct of [[WriterOnBoard Chris Claremont's own antipathy toward religion]].
** Perhaps the one aversion in ''X-Men'' is a preacher in Denver whose wife became infected with a brood egg but regained her free will. He was always sympathetic to the mutant cause, but we haven't heard from them in awhile.
* The Deacon from ''AstroCity'' is the undisputed boss of all organized crime throughout the city. This is balanced by his greatest enemy, the Confessor, not only also being religiously themed, but actually being a real priest.
* In ''DeadIrons'', Devin Irons is the utter personification of this trope. This false priest is so reprehensible that he makes Caleb look like a wannabe sinister minister sissy. Not only did he sell the souls of his own four children, turning them into the vicious unholy beasts they are today, for the power to control men's minds; he planned to create an even larger sacrifice to gain immortality from the Plague Bringer Demon by forcing the death of 99 innocent "willing" victims. However, he needed his rogue children to complete the pact. So what does he do? He uses the dark arts to resurrect his own wife, now a mockery of life in the guise of a flesh eating ghoul, as a method of pulling the Iron children's heart strings and luring them back to his cursed town. Did I also mention he was responsible for the death of the hero's father figure, Jonas Keegan, after he came to confront the twisted preacher for tying his son to a statue, bloody and beaten, with the word "sinner" painted onto his chest?
* A couple of chapters of Nightmares and Fairy Tales feature a group of nuns that are anything but holy. They keep a pet demon in the attic of their convent and as for what they feed it? Let's just say that the local adoption rate of orphaned babies has been slipping since they showed up.

* The villainous Bishop of Aquila from the film ''{{Ladyhawke}}'', who put a demonic curse upon Etienne and Isabeau because he wanted the latter for himself and was denied.
* [[SerialKiller Harry Powell]] from ''TheNightOfTheHunter''. Not actually an accredited preacher, though.
* To some extent, ''There Will Be Blood'''s Eli Sunday.
* Reverend Kane from ''{{Poltergeist}} II.''
* Father Lucci in ''The Seventh Sign''.
* Reverend Crane, father of the main protagonist of ''SleepyHollow''.

* ''TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'''s sexually frustrated Archdeacon, Claude Frollo. He is, however, less evil than just lustful, confused and militant.
** In the [[Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame Disney version]] turns him into a pure, remorseless villain with few, if any, redeeming traits. However, in this version, he is not a priest, just a judge; nonetheless, he his still depicted as extremely religious. Since a few characters refer to him as "minister", the trope still applies literally.
*** In the Disney version, the original character was actually ''split him in two''. Instead of a conflicted, tragic AntiVillain of an antagonist, we get two separate characters: The good [[GoodShepherd Archdeacon of Notre Dame]], who takes care of poor Quasimodo, while Frollo becomes the Archdeacon's evil brother, a much less ambiguous corrupt judge.
**** That's not new to the Disney film. Almost every other version of the film has turned Claude Frollo into a nice guy while using his brother Jean (a minor character and reported wastrel from the book) as the villain. Disney actually deserves some credit for keeping Claude as the villain; even if they did alter his job description they still kept him very religious. In the other adaptations, only good!Claude is religious, while bad!Jean is just a worthless psycho.
***** Since the HaysCode specifically forbid the use of this trope, in some cases this was a necessity.
* The title character of ''Elmer Gantry'', although he's portrayed more as merely slick and self-deluded than as "pure evil."
* Lysander and Marius Rassianus from the ''[=~Prophet's House~=]'' Quintology.
* Annias in ''The Elenium'' by David & Leigh Eddings' is a high-ranking clergyman who loudly proclaims his virtue while using bribes, threats, and outright murder in his attempt to seize the throne of the Archprelate (AKA the Pope). Later, it turns out that he's actually working for an ancient, evil god, too.
* Reverend Sunlight Gardner, who runs an OrphanageOfFear in StephenKing's ''The Talisman''.
* The Cardinal in ''TheThreeMusketeers''.
** He's an antagonist because he is the prime minister of France, so probably more an EvilChancellor than a pure example of this trope. There is one scene that exposes the rivalry between the Musketeers and the Cardinal's church bureaucrats, but otherwise his clerical aspects are irrelevant.
* The priest in the novel ''Chocolat''.
* Corrupt churchmen occur in most versions of the RobinHood legend.
* Arguably, the Reverend Dr. Syn, a "mild mannered clergyman from Kent", also known as the vicious criminal "the Scarecrow", and the feared pirate Captain Clegg.
** The {{Hammer Horror}} version plays him as a good-guy, but calls him "Blyss" as Walt Disney had the rights to the name "Syn".
* The title character from ''The Monk.''
* Vorbis from the ''{{Discworld}}'' book ''Discworld/SmallGods''. Unlike some examples, though, Vorbis believes with absolute certainty that all the bad things he does to advance the church and himself are necessary according to his twisted conception of the religion. A character in the book mentions this trope, expecting that Vorbis maintains his austere image just to hide a life of luxury and indulgence, but he doesn't. It is implied that this makes him worse than a common variety corrupt priest, as Vorbis's crimes are driven by something stronger and more constant than self-interest.
* The 'helpful' clergyman of the John Dickson Carr mystery ''Hag's Nook''.
* Pryrates from ''MemorySorrowAndThorn'' is a priest as well as the most cliched EvilSorcerer one can imagine. He lives in a tower which no one dares to enter, he wears scarlet robes, has a shaved head, [[KickTheDog kills a puppy]] as one of his [[EstablishingCharacterMoment character introduction scenes]] and has such evil vibes that the hero notices him as a bad guy right away. And the [[XanatosSucker King]] doesn't care at all.
** It's pretty heavily implied that Pryrates [[CompleteMonster indulges in just about every Villain Trope he can think of]] just because [[ForTheEvulz he knows it will creep people out]].
* Fray Emilio [[MeaningfulName Bocanegra ("Black-Mouth")]] from the Spanish series of books ''The Adventures of Captain {{Alatriste}}'' is an evil member of {{The Spanish Inquisition}}. He represents {{The Church}} by himself, although he conspires with representatives of other organizations. Also appears in {{The Film Of The Book}}.
* As old as TheBible itself- 3rd John speaks of Diotrephes, a church head who was a malicious gossip and excommunicated members of his church for not adopting gnosticism.
* ''{{Safehold}}'s'' [[CorruptChurch Church of God Awaiting]] has its Sinister Ministers, but the standout is its the Grand Inquisitor Zhaspahr Clyntahn, whose crossings of the MoralEventHorizon include the brutal execution of a scapegoat Archbishop, having members of his order instigate a massacre against traders and merchants of the heretic nation of Charis, and [[spoiler:having an allied prince and his sixteen year old heir assassinated when said Prince was about to surrender to the Charisian emperor, Cayleb.]] Making Clyntahn especially dangerous even after all that is he has himself utterly convinced that he's a WellIntentionedExtremist.
* Subverted in the ''{{Illuminatus}}!''-trilogy, where Padre Pederastia (a nickname, obviously) is a CampGay Roman Catholic priest who runs a Satanic sect in his spare time, and routinely steals the sacramental bread from his church to be used in the Satanic rituals. The sect is completely harmless, Padre himself doesn't even believe in God ''or'' Satan, and he is indeed one of the good guys.
* In ''The Jehovah Contract,'' an evil televangelist with some kind of supernatural powers hires the narrator character to assassinate Jehovah.

* ''{{Carnivale}}'''s Brother Justin Crowe is a super-powered and incestuously-inclined example of this trope who turns out to be not only the living embodiment of evil as the Avatar of Darkness but [[spoiler:the fabled Usher of Destruction]].
* Distilled to its most utterly villainous and despicable essence in the person of Caleb from ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', a psychotic misogynist and serial killer who used his sermons to lure impressionable young women to him and then brutally murder them. This was ''before'' he became TheDragon for the UltimateEvil in the universe, who granted him super-strength and an army and tasked him with massacring the Slayer potentials and the Watchers. He took to his mission with sadistic glee, reciting twisted prayers and Biblical references as he casually broke arms, [[NeckSnap snapped necks]], and [[EyeScream put out eyes]]. Caleb was, bar none, the single vilest villain in ''Buffy'' canon, even surpassing [[CompleteMonster Angelus]] in depravity and pure hatred.
** You forgot to mention that he also qualifies as a [[SexyPriest Sexy Priest]]. Which makes him even [[DracoInLeatherPants more disturbing]].
** His voice and mannerisms are also a direct reference to RobertMitchum's character from ''TheNightoftheHunter''--who is actually [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X20XIg38GcE even spookier than Caleb]].
* To a lesser degree and outside Christianity, Baber, the conservative ex-imam from ''LittleMosqueOnThePrairie''.
** Although the Archdeacon, played by Colin Mochrie, fits the trope a bit more closely.
* The Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells in ''{{Blackadder}} II''.

* The warmongering, terrorist Reverend Steve Newland of ''TrueBlood''
* There's one episode of ''MidsomerMurders'' where the murderer is the local priest, responsible for three murders. The reason for this is that (unbeknownst to his wife and the rest of the village) he'd had a kid some twenty years earlier with an unmarried woman, and said kid had died (in order to join a "club", the members made him stand tiptoe on a chair with a noose around his neck while they went off for a smoke). When one of the victims thought he was dying, he confessed to the priest, who decapitated one, burned another alive, and arrowed the last through the back. Quite a normal BackStory for a resident of Midsomer County.
* An episode of ''CriminalMinds'' had a priest who killed people using drug-laced holy water in his exorcisms.
* On ''{{Lost}}'', a prison chaplain refused to absolve Richard for accidentally killing a doctor, in blatant violation of Church doctrine. Richard was about to be hanged, and apparently someone wanted him softened up and scared to be sent to the New World as a slave.
* Kai Winn in ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', who becomes leader of a SaintlyChurch purely in pursuit of personal power, and somehow fools everyone except the main characters. Initially she believes that [[ItsAllAboutMe everything that goes right for her is proof she's doing the Prophets' will, and everything that goes wrong is a test]], but later she decides that if the Prophets don't agree with her they're wrong, and turns to the Pah-Wraiths, the Bajoran equivalent of demons.

* The Genesis song (and video) "Jesus He Knows Me" is about a televangelist who enjoys a decadent, corrupt lifestyle funded by the contributions of his viewers.
* "Holy Roller Novocaine" by the Kings of Leon (and possibly about the Followill brothers' grandfather) is sung from the point of view of a itinerant preacher trying to seduce a woman he meets on his travels.
* IronMaiden have "Holy Smoke", which lambasts sinister ministers - "Holy Smoke, Holy Smoke, Plenty bad preachers for the Devil to stoke" - written in response to the very public falls from grace of several anti-heavy-metal (and nearly everything else) televangelists. It alludes to several in a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed way - "Jimmy The Reptile" for Jimmy Swaggart, "The TV Queen" probably referring to Tammy Faye Bakker.

* {{ECW}} wrestling manager ''The Sinister Minister'': It's his friggin' '''name'''!
** The man behind this gimmick did much the same act in {{TNA}} as Minister / Father James Mitchell.
* Brother Love, the stereotypical evil preacher and wrestling manager.

* This is a common characterisation of the Rev Green from {{Cluedo}}.
* Cardinal Krozen from ''{{Eberron}}''.
* Reverend Ezekiah Grimme from {{Deadlands}}. A [[ImAHumanitarian humanitarian]] to boot.
** From the same game, there's [[CareerKillers Career Killer]] "Deacon" Jim Miller. Unlike the real Miller, who was called "Deacon" just because he attended church and didn't smoke or drink, this version is an actual Methodist deacon when he isn't out bushwhacking people for money.

* Zoser, the high priest in ''Aida'', and his {{Mooks}} are slowly using arsenic to kill their pharaoh.
* ''HenryVI'' has the Bishop of Winchester, later Cardinal of Winchester, who orders his half-brother's death in an attempt to secure the crown and is noted by all other characters to be a depraved and power-hungry man.
* ''The Duchess of Malfi'' by John Webster has The Cardinal, the Duchess' brother (Webster was more into plots than names, it seems). He conspires to have his sister killed and her kids murdered, partly in order to preserve the family honor and partly to get his hands on her wealth. He also pulls strings to have ill-gotten lands deeded to his married girlfriend.

* The bishop from ''FinalFantasyTactics''.
* The Pope of the church of Martel in ''TalesOfSymphonia''.
* Wiseman of ''BatenKaitos Origins''.
* Kotomine Kirei of ''FateStayNight'', whose appearance and [[JojiNakata voice actor]] practically screams 'sinister' despite being the overseer of the Grail War and Rin's guardian -- [[spoiler:and sure enough, he ends up as the BigBad of the first route, the one responsible for much of the grief in the second, as well as being the FinalBoss in the third]]. In ''FateZero'', [[spoiler:he also usurps several stronger villains and ends up as the BigBad yet again]].
** A reasonably good case could be made for much of the Church in the Nasuverse. Of it's three representatives we've seen, the other two were noted as exceptions to the rule, while Kotomine was clearly a whole different ball of wax. The church in ''{{Tsukihime}}'' had no problem whatsover [[TheyWouldCutYouUp performing horrific experiments]] on the effectively immortal [[spoiler: Ciel]], one of their own members. Though they might be {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s, or just standard KnightTemplar.
* Bishop Mandible of ''Loom''.
* '''"[[CatchPhrase KOKO]] [[SNKBoss DESU]] [[TheKingOfFighters KA]]?"'''
* The preacher you chase through Evarai in ''Breath of Fire 2''.
* Bishop Stone/Stein in ''XenoGears''.
* Grand Maestro Mohs in ''TalesOfTheAbyss''.
* There is often at least one in FireEmblem games. One is the primary antagonist in Seisen No Keifu, another is the AntiClimaxBoss of Thracia 776, one is a miniboss in Rekka no ken, and one is a primary antagonist in Sacred Stones.

* Pastor Richards in ''GrandTheftAuto[[GrandTheftAutoViceCity : Vice City]]'' VCPR radio station. He plans to build a giant statue for himself and his concubines, and needs your donations to do so.
* Graham Jones in {{Castlevania}}: Aria of Sorrow. Dressed like a Southern Baptist televangelist, and sounds like one too. He also shares the KnightTemplar [[TheFundamentalist fundamentalism]] qualities.
* Girolamo Savonarola in ''AssassinsCreed 2'' who not only is an extremist preacher like his real-life counterpart, but also is willing to [[spoiler: use the ancient artifact to subjugate Florentines and spread his agenda]] and seems to be [[spoiler: a supporter of Rodrigo Borgia]].
* The Archbishop Lazarus in {{Diablo}}.
* Father Karras, the extremely hypocritical and [[AGodAmI self-centric]] founder and leader of the [[AveMachina Mechanists]], from ''{{Thief}} II : The Metal Age''.

* [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Brother Blood]] from TeenTitans (a cult leader) is the BigBad of season 3. He's teaching supervillains how to take over the world. When he sees a potential new recruit he tries to seduce them by promising to make their wildest dreams come true. And when that doesn't work, it's time for MindControl.

* Tomas de Torquemada. 'Nuff said.
** Torquemada was actually more lenient than many secular judges (he allowed a defendant's lawyer to be present) and was actively trying to limit corruption of the church officials. Given that his practices were aimed at supporting King of Spain, he is more EvilChancellor than SinisterMinister.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown Jim Jones]], leader of the People's Temple and a serious piece of work.
* There are some churches that design their power structures in such a way that a Sinister Minister cannot gain any real power unless he has lots and lots of support.
* David Koresh.
* Fred Phelps. Alleged to have abused some of his children, nearly all the members of his "church" are his family members making him both a SinisterMinister and a [[AbusiveParents nasty father/grandfather]].
* Then there are the reports of sexual abuse and exploitation of children by clergy, most notoriously involving [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases Catholic priests]] but with analogues in other denominations.
* In early colonial times, many Spanish friars would abuse their powers to steal peoples lands, money and women.
* Girolamo Savonarola, although he may be also considered WellIntentionedExtremist, as he rose to power through opposing debauched lifestyle of Medicis and papacy (the latter was also main cause of his demise).
* John of Leiden, leader of the anabaptist rebellion in Münster in 1534, at least according to the available sources that were written predominantly by his enemies.

<<|{{Villains}}|>>

** In the first series, Blackadder himself becomes Archbishop of Canterbury in "The Archbishop", while a friar is part of Blackadder's LegionOfDoom in "The Black Seal".

->''"Where do I begin with this guy? He kills an innocent woman, tries to drown her baby, keeps him in a belltower, burns people alive, lusts over women, '''offers their freedom for sex''', and all while claiming he's a good Christian."''
-->--'''TheNostalgiaCritic''' on [[Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame Claude Frollo]]

* All Father D'Aronique, and sundry other clegy of the Grail conspiracy from {{Preacher}}. Apparently entirely sincere in his beliefs. Most of the Grail personnel who appear are KnightTemplars though.

* In ''DeadIrons'', Devin Irons is the utter personification of this trope. This false priest is so reprehensible that he makes Caleb look like a wannabe sinister minister sissy. Not only did he sell the souls of his own four children, turning them into the vicious unholy beasts they are today, for the power to control mens' minds; he planned to create an even larger sacrifice to gain immortality from the Plague Bringer Demon by forcing the death of 99 innocent "willing" victims. However, he needed his rogue children to complete the pact. So what does he do? He uses the dark arts to resurrect his own wife, now a mockery of life in the guise of a flesh eating ghoul, as a method of pulling the Iron childrens' heart strings and luring them back to his cursed town. Did I also mention he was responsible for the death of the hero's father figure, Jonas Keegan, after he came to confront the twisted preacher for tying his son to a statue, bloody and beaten, with the word "sinner" painted onto his chest?

**** That's not new to the Disney film. Almost every other version of the film has turned Claude Frollo into a nice guy while using his brother Jean (a minor character and reported wastrel from the book) as the villain. Disney actually deserves some credit for keeping Claude as the villain; even if they did alter his job description they still kept him very religous. In the other adaptations, only good!Claude is religous, while bad!Jean is just a worthless psycho.

* ''{{Carnivale}}'''s Brother Justin Crowe is a super-powered and incestuously-inclined example of this trope.

* Kai Winn in ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', who becomes leader of a SaintlyChurch purely in pursuit of personal power, and somehow fools everyone except the main characters. Initially she believes that [[ItsAllAboutMe everything that goes right for her is proof she's doing the Prophets' will, and everything that goes wrong is a test]], but later she decides that if the Prophets don't agree with her they're wrong, and turns to the Pah-Wraiths, the Bajoran equivilent of demons.

* There is often at least one in FireEmblem games. One is the primary antagonist in Seisen No Keifu, another is the AntiClimaxBoss of Thracia 776, one is a miniboss in Rekka no ken, and one is a primary antagonst in Sacred Stones.

* John of Leiden, leader of anapabtist rebellion in Münster in 1534, at least according to the available sources that were written predominantly by his enemies.

-->--'''[[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses The Nostalgia Critic]]''' on [[Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame Claude Frollo]]

** In the [[Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame Disney version]] turns him into a pure, remorseless villain with few, if any, redeeming traits. However, in this version, he is not a priest, just a judge; nonetheless, he his still depicted as extremely religious. Since a few characters refer to him as "minister", so the trope still applies literally.

** In the [[Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame Disney version]] turns him into a pure, remorseless villain with few, if any, redeeming traits. However, in this version, he is not a priest, just a judge; nonetheless, he his still depicted as extremely religious.
*** It's more complicated than that -- they actually ''split him in two''. Instead of a conflicted, tragic AntiVillain of an antagonist, we get two separate characters: The good [[GoodShepherd Archdeacon of Notre Dame]], who takes care of poor Quasimodo, while Frollo becomes the Archdeacon's evil brother, a much less ambiguous corrupt judge.

* The Cardinal [[spoiler:Rolo vi Britannia]] in ''CodeGeass: NightmareOfNunnally has shades of this. While the Geass Directorate/Cult was not explicitly religious in the original series, it was much more so in the manga, with Emperor Charles declaring a religious state at the climax. The Cardinal serves as the moutpiece for the religion throughout, and plans to kill Nunnally, Charles, and Lelouch to become the Demon King.

* The Cardinal [[spoiler:Rolo vi Britannia]] in ''CodeGeass: NightmareOfNunnally]] has shades of this. While the Geass Directorate/Cult was not explicitly religious in the original series, it was much more so in the manga, with Emperor Charles declaring a religious state at the climax. The Cardinal serves as the moutpiece for the religion throughout, and plans to kill Nunnally, Charles, and Lelouch to become the Demon King.