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

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 his Vow of Celibacy, but there's still room for the handsome, single, young pastor in Protestant settings as well, with the added possibility of a happy ending.

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 in a Saintly Church 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, 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:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Frau in 07-Ghost. And Castor.
  • The Church of Violence in Black Lagoon acquires one of these in season 2: Ricardo aka Rico, the Naïve Newcomer who hangs out with Eda and gets called "jackass" for referring to her as "sis" intead of "Sister".
  • Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto is about Cesare Borgia, one of the most well-known examples of this from real life (and no, he wasn't as evil as some books and games would have you believe. This series is a refreshing aversion of his family's usual Historical Villain Upgrade). In vol. 6, he gets dressed up in all his finery as a bishop, and several characters comment on his beauty, saying they've never seen a more beautiful priest.
  • Father Remington of Chrono Crusade is handsome... and knows it. He happily flirts back with the younger nuns, much to Sister Kate's chagrin. He's handsome enough that Rosette — a nun herself and something of an adopted daughter to him — has a crush on him, too.
    • Apparently, the reason why he's so hot in the anime is that he's a Really 700 Years Old fallen angel. (In the manga he's unnaturally youthful despite having been a teen in the 1870s due to being implanted with demonic "legion.")
    • In the epilogue of the manga, it turns out that Joshua Christopher, Rosette's younger brother, becomes a priest as well and keeps his Bishōnen looks.
  • While not exactly priests, the Exorcists in D.Gray-Man could qualify.
  • Kirei Kotomine from Fate/stay night. Well, as much as a fake priest can be anyways. He's rugged and well-built for a middle-aged man, while his younger self in Fate/Zero has a more traditional youthful handsomeness.
  • Miroku of Inuyasha is a houshi, a wandering Buddhist monk. He's also Team Inuyasha's resident Handsome Lech and generally very popular with the ladies of any given Adventure Town — to the endless exasperation of both Sango and Inuyasha.
  • Farther Kanae of Maria†Holic has a bit of a crush on Mariya which he tries to keep to himself. Mariya spots the crush instantly and vainly glories in it.
  • Genjyo Sanzo of Saiyuki certainly qualifies (appropriate, given the source material). As does Hazel, who even thinks of himself as one, going so far as to suggest that Sanzo is attracted to him.
    Gat: *upon encountering a pack of demons* Looks like we're way too noticeable.
    Hazel: Well, it can't be helped. After all, we're an odd trio of two handsome men and one giant fellow.
    Sanzo: No comment...
  • Nicholas D. Wolfwood in Trigun.
  • Trinity Blood is full of these. Father Abel, Father Tres, Father Leon, Father Hugue, Brother Petro... even the Pope! Observe here.
  • Charley in Vassalord, though he gets it all the time from Rayflo.
  • Violinist of Hameln has Clari Nett: serious, bishonen, and devout. Unfortunately for his mental health, Hamelin has convinced himself that Clari is gay and insists on calling him rude names. And forcing Raiel to dress up as a girl to "tempt" him.
  • Ryoumei, from Yume Musubi, Koi Musubi.

    Comic Books 
  • Jesse Custer, the titular Preacher, is a damn fine-lookin' fella, even though he only has eyes for Tulip.
  • The men in Sin City once sent a priest to Claudia's hen night. The women mistook him for a stripper.
  • X-Men: Nightcrawler did train to become a priest, and many a girl dig that nummy Fuzzy Elf...

    Fan Works 
  • In Tithing Love, Carter is the handsome young pastor of the local church. He's Claire's love interest.

    Film 

    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."
    • A hunter returns from hunting rabbits, having found nothing in his traps, and goes to the local monastery where friar Richard is known to present freshly-caught rabbits to the kitchen every day. The friar listens and says:
    "What you must do is rub your fingers against a woman's coneynote  then on the noose. The smell attracts them like flies to honey. Only don't go telling people where you learned that."
    The hunter is surprised that a friar would know such a trick, let alone use it every day, but decides to try it. He goes home, sees his wife bending over the stove, puts his hand up her dress... and his wife says:
    "Hunting for rabbits again, Richard?"

    Literature 
  • 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.
  • Ascendance of a Bookworm: High Priest Ferdinand is quite the Chick Magnet among noblewomen. When he shows up in the Noble's Quarter, which he usually visits in civilian clothes, in his priest robes for the first time, it's treated as a big event.
  • Jane Austen's six novels include 3 clergymen as the heroine's winning love interest:
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • Young naive Catholic curate Father Neil Boyd in the original novels for Bless Me Father is this to the Estrogen Brigade in his parish. He develops a suspicion an older and more cynical priest is pimping him out to rich widows and garnering large donations to Church funds in return.
  • 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.
  • Older Than Print: There are at least a few examples of both types in The Decameron.
  • 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 blonde woman sighed approvingly. "I certainly have. What a pity he's a priest."
  • In Earth's Children, Vincavec is a member of his people's religious order (the story is set in the Ice Age) and is noted to be an attractive and compelling man; even Ayla finds herself drawn to him to some extent (despite pining for for then-ex lover Jondalar) and she isn't completely opposed to the idea of mating him. Vincavec is well aware of this and does everything he can to persuade Ayla to consider him.
  • Mentioned in Gargantua: "The tower of a cloister makes the woman of the village more fertile."
  • Gösta Berling in Gösta Berling's Saga is at one point this, at least at some points in the narrative. (It's complicated.)
  • The humorous book Growing Up Catholic calls this trope "Father Whatawaste."
  • 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.
  • Horus Heresy: The last Christian priest, Uriah Olathaire, was quite the womanizer before his discovery of "God" after a Curb-Stomp Battle against the Emperor's Thunder Warriors.
  • 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".
  • The Monk Ambrosio is described as being very attractive, and is obviously popular with the ladies of his congregation.
  • Adso of Melk in The Name of the Rose is a young virginal monk (played by Christian Slater in the film) who becomes the target of a young beautiful peasant girl who proceeds to have sex with him, which affects him to the point where he starts having affections for her.
  • In Purple Hibiscus, this is how Father Amadi is described by Kambili. Very frequently. In lots of detail.
  • Julien Sorel, the Anti-Hero / Villain Protagonist of The Red and the Black.
  • Pastor Charles Jacobs of Stephen King's Revival is noted as being quite handsome, to the point that every teenage girl in town has a crush on him. Unfortunately for them, he's Happily Married... until things start going downhill.
  • Father Daniel Brophy in the Rizzoli & Isles series, thus explaining Dr. Maura Isles' attraction to him.
  • Father Lorenzo Quart in Arturo Pérez-Reverte's The Seville Communion.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Aramis from The Three Musketeers and sequels.
  • In the Village Tales novels, the Rector, Canon Paddick, is one par excellence (and Even the Guys Want Him), being often described In-Universe as "Becks in a biretta" (he's very High Church). His senior-most, though youngest in age, curate, Fr. Paul Campion, rowed for Keble and Oxford and is described In-Universe, by In-Universe fans, as a young Jonny Wilkinson in a backwards collar. The rest of the C of E clergy, and fubsy, ginger Mgr Folan for the RCs … not so much.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Guest: Choi Yoon/Father Matthew, a Catholic priest and exorcist
  • Agatha Raisin: The (first) Victim of the Week in "Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate" is a hunky Anglican curate, who Ray describes as "hot a f" and Agatha describes as a "smoking hot vicar". He has the single female population of the village fawning over him.
  • 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.
  • Caleb has to consider his faith after flirting with Annie in Beverly Hills, 90210.
  • Young naive Catholic curate Father Neil Boyd in Bless Me Father is this to the Estrogen Brigade in his parish. He develops a suspicion an older and more cynical priest is pimping him out to rich widows, and garnering large donations to Church funds in return.
  • The Borgias: 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).
  • Sister Paul's POV episode in Brides of Christ features Jack Delahunty, who she meets at a wedding. It's a mutual attraction.
  • Rev. Paul Coates of the small town of Broadchurch.
  • Nathan Fillion (again) as Caleb from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if you can get past the creep factor.
  • Brother Justin Crowe on Carnivàle. 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...
  • City on a Hill: Diarmuid Doyle is a handsome young Irish Priest who has an intense mutual attraction with Jenny.
  • 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.
  • Derry Girls: Father Peter is a young local priest. All of the main characters (excluding the lesbian but including the guy) have crushes on him. But Peter is having a Crisis of Faith and he leaves the priesthood, only to return to it in series 2 after the woman he shacks up with dumps him for someone else.
  • Padre Juan de la Cruz from the critically-acclaimed Mexican telenovela El privilegio de amar. He is played by the very sexy and super-macho actor Cesar Evora.
  • Father Tomás, from Esperanza Mía. Esperanza, who poses as a nun to escape from criminals, fell in love with him. His former girlfriend, who is now enagged with his brother, still loves him as well.
  • 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.
  • Andrew Scott's priest in the second season of Fleabag has a Will They or Won't They? dynamic with Fleabag. And because most characters in the show are No Name Given, she refers to him extremely frequently in her narration as "Hot Priest." They eventually have sex, although in the end he breaks off their relationship to re-devote himself to God. It's framed as a Love Triangle of sorts, and he choses God.
  • Father Kieron on Hollyoaks is lusted after by several female members of the village, especially Mercedes and Michaela McQueen, and ends up having a relationship with John Paul.
  • Rickety Cricket in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia — before the gang ruined his life, that is.
  • 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 (the past-her-prime village bicycle).
  • Law & Order: Criminal Intent: The dashing Monsignor Brady in "The Consoler". He is very popular with the female members of his flock. Goren and Ames also discover that he is noticeably lax regarding his vow of chastity, and that he preys upon vulnerable women. He is not, however, a murderer.
  • Father Antonio on Los Espookys is young and very attractive, much to the consternation of his superior who believes that Antonio's good looks will steal all the clientele from him.
  • 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.
  • The Mary Tyler Moore Show had an episode where Mary becomes friends with a handsome young priest, who announces he is quitting the priesthood. Mary thinks it's because of her, and tell him not to. He actually has deep theological reasons, and find the idea that he would quit over Mary very funny and laughs so hard that she becomes quite insulted.
  • More cute than "sexy" but Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H wore a tight black t-shirt with his usual army uniform sometimes and looked very nice indeed.
    • Mulcahy only had to give a woman the brush-off once (after she "hugged the stuffing" out of him). When he told Hawkeye about it the doctor laughed long and hard; he never expected Mulcahy to have that problem.
  • Reverend Andrew Carpenter of One Life to Live. Throughout his time on the show, several women fall madly in love with him, one of whom he married, another of whom became a borderline Yandere when he rebuffed her, and yet another who was herself married. His cousin Maggie, a postulate, could be considered a female version of this.
  • Invoked in Penn & Teller when they meet a self-described "porn pastor." It's not quite what it sounds like.
  • Father Philip Callaghan from Poltergeist: The Legacy.
  • Reba has a priest Barbara Jean considers very sexy. She makes repeated references to The Thorn Birds and flirts with him throughout the episode, until the very end when it seems he's responding to her advances, at which point she reminds him of his vows and leaves, showing that at least part of the attraction was the Forbidden Fruit.
  • 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.
  • Samantha from Sex and the City lusted after one of these. She nicknamed him "Friar Fuck".
  • A female version in the Lifetime Movie of the Week "Sins And Seduction". Unlike most of this network's fare, she's actually a good person.
  • Father Phil Intintola had a flirtation with Carmela Soprano in The Sopranos. Mostly, their flirting consisted of her making him food (particularly baked ziti) as they drank wine and watched middlebrow movies. That said, Father Phil and Carmela once very nearly got it on after a particularly wine-soaked evening, but circumstances prevented it. The flirtation ended after Carmela saw Rosalie Aprile (who had been widowed earlier that year) feeding him ziti in a chapel.
  • 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.
  • Father Antonio from Sunset Beach. His attraction to his brother's girlfriend is mutual.
  • 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.
  • The handsome Latino priest in the second season premiere and finale for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles may qualify.
  • 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.
  • Almost everyone on Vikings seems to be attracted to Athelstan — whether he realizes it is another story. Technically, he's not a priest, but a monk, but he gets the nickname 'Priest' from the vikings and essentially serves this role for them.
  • Father Gabriel of The Walking Dead has gained a lot of fan girls and is forgiven for some of his Ambiguously Evil tendencies because of his attractiveness, despite being a Sinister Minister. Fortunately, he pulled a Heel–Face Turn and hoped onboard with the idea of being a hero among the survivors. He also smiles more often now that he's regained his faith in life.
  • 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.

    Music 
  • Louis Jordan's "Deacon Jones" is about a Protestant minister, which cuts down on some of the impropriety. Still, he sounds like he's getting away with a lot.
    Now who is it that will keep a sister singin'? (Deacon Jones)
    Yes, yes, and who will keep her phone a ringin'? (Deacon Jones)
    Mhm, and when she's left alone at night
    Who will help her see the light?
    Lordy Lord Hallelujah, Deacon Jones

    Tabletop Games 
  • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: While there are male priests of Shallya (the goddess of healing), they aren't allowed to stay for any length of time in a temple until they're well past their prime, specifically to avoid "broken hearts" (and other incidents involving young men and women cohabiting, as popular in-universe fiction is quite fond of telling).

    Theatre 
  • In Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer, the village rector Dr. Daly laments that he was one of these. (The events of the play demonstrate that perhaps he still is, at least to one young woman in his congregation.)
  • 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.
  • Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto — Raffaele Riario, Archbishop of Pisa, sings a song about how much he loves beauty, and how Cesare Borgia, another bishop, is as beautiful as Donatello's David.

    Video Games 
  • Every one of the Lumen Sages in Bayonetta is a young, handsome, muscular, charismatic, smooth-talking guy, and some of them radiate light. (and they're the bad guys, by the way). In fact, to drive the point home, the Big Bad of the game is named Father Balder.
  • Teague Martin from Dishonored is an Overseer, which is the equivalent of a priest in that universe. He is noticeably better-looking than pretty much every other male character in the game.
  • Sebastian Vael of Dragon Age II is tanned, blue-eyed, lean and athletic with great cheekbones... and very devoted to the Chantry and his vows. A female Hawke can romance him, but their marriage stays a celibate one (unless he and Hawke are in a rivalry, in which case he stops being a Sexy Priest and vows to take back his throne of Starkhaven).
  • Angelo, despite being Dragon Quest VIII's resident Handsome Lech, is still an ordained member of the clergy.
  • Far Cry 5: Though nobody ever comments on it, Joseph Seed has a body of an Olympic swimmer and is frequently shirtless to show it off. Quite remarkable for someone to qualify as this as well as the Sinister Minister.
    • On the heroes' side, Pastor Jerome Jeffries has glasses, a deep, masculine voice, and at least one woman found him attractive, judging by that perfumed letter the player finds in his church.
  • Play a Fire Emblem game. You'll probably find at least one handsome Priest, Monk, or Bishop. And yup, you can get more than one of them hook up with another character via A supports.
  • Kolyat from Mass Effect 3 is an alien priest, but he counts as one nonetheless. He looks exactly like his attractive father, Thane Krios.
  • The yōkai monk Aobōzu in Onmyoji is a handsome Mr. Fanservice Bishōnen as well as a Buddhist priest.
  • Priests in Ragnarok Online. Men have bared chests, and women wear habits with slits up to the waist. And stockings.
  • Father Vincent from Silent Hill 3, depending on the player's fondness for slightly creepy, disheveled, lazy-eyed cult leaders.
  • Since Touken Ranbu has a Cast Full of Pretty Boys, no sword is spared from looking totally gorgeous, with religious swords playing this trope in Shintoist, Buddhist and – in the case of Hasebe – Christian varieties.
  • A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: Flavio, who's only motivated as a priest because he gets to look at nubile young women, is at least handsome enough that some non-young women do want his attention. Such as Juliette, who heard of him through rumors of a "handsome priest".

    Web Originals 

    Western Animation 
  • King of the Hill: Monsignor Martinez in "Vaya Con Dios" the Telenovela.
  • The Simpsons: When Bart is sent to Catholic school after being expelled from Springfield Elementary, he strikes up a friendship with the easy-going Father Sean (voiced by Liam Neeson). While not "sexy" per se, Sean is younger and more attractive than you'd expect most priests to be, and he openly admits that the Vow of Celibacy is one of the church's "sterner challenges".


 
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