YMMV / Clergy

• Cry for the Devil: Lisowski, as a child in an Orphanage of Fear, got raped by a teen boy, on the direct order of the nun running the facility, as an utterly twisted punishment. All because he wet his bed. This scene mostly works, because it's set up before the big reveal about Lisowski's own deviancy.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In slightly over a year after premiere, a nation-wide scandal involving dozens of pedophile priests erupted, along with revealing the Church hierarchy was sweeping it all under the rug for years. What was meant as an overblown caricature of the whole issue became more tame than reality itself. Extra points for the fact archbishop Głódź, the real basis for fictional archbishop Mordowicz, was revealed to be doing exactly same thing with hiding sexual abusers in his archdiocese and manipulating media over it, despite at the time of filming he was mostly known for being "barely" a greedy and boastful drunkard.
  • There is also a line about the Church trying to force through the parliament the total ban on abortion, as part of the joke with extremely overblown demands toward politicians. One of MPs present in Mordowicz's office points out it would be against the constitution, only to be shut down by the archbishop. It stopped being funny almost exactly two years after premiere, when with big applause from the Church top hierarchy, the pro-clerical government heavily restricted already restrictive abortion law in Poland, twisting out the interpretation of constitution to make it happen.
• Memetic Mutation: The infamous "Golden, yet modest" line instantly entered coloquial Polish.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Since the sole trailer of the movie caused an extremely strong reaction from conservative wing of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Poland and even stronger right-wing political reaction, it fuelled attendance to the movie, as everyone wanted to know what's all that fuss about. The result? The best opening weekend in 40 years and many cinemas selling all the tickets out days in advance. The unintended free marketing the movie had during just three weeks prior to its premiere is estimated to be worth 65 million złotych, while the production budget was just 10 million and actual marketing campaign counted as less than half a million.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: As stated above, the already heavy-hitting movie only managed to gain extra momentum when Church representatives started a fierce campaign against it, soon joined by politicians and far-right groups. Minor acts of vandalism against posters and withdrawal of certain cinemas from distributing the movie followed even before the premiere, further fuelling interest in the movie.

---