Religion: Hollywood Knows, Mr. A.

Hollywood long ago discovered that priests and nuns were box office. Protestants were tossed a few films such as A Man Called Peter and Battle Hymn, but it was the Roman collar that looked best on Bing Crosby, Spencer Tracy and Pat O'Brien—not to mention Barry Fitzgerald, Van Johnson, Paul Douglas, Gregory Peck, Charles Boyer, Montgomery Clift, Henry Fonda, Charles Bickford, Karl Maiden, and even Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra. All this adds up to vulgar exploitation of the Roman Catholic Church, says Film Critic Robert Brizzolara of The Voice of St. Jude,...