History Main / TurbulentPriest

* Friar Tuck in the RobinHood legendarium.

This trope can be depicted in either a positive or negative light. If the Turbulent Priest is portrayed as in the right, his opponent is usually interested in money or power, and will quite gladly engage in [[KickTheDog animal cruelty]], torture, executions, and other immoral behavior to get it (sometimes said opponent will also attack the church to try and remove any opposition). They could also just be someone who has [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney money]] [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections or]] [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem power]] and [[ItsAllAboutMe thinks this gives them the right to kick anyone in their way]], with this often being TruthInTelevision regarding such situations. If he's in the wrong, the Secular Authority is generally trying to improve society, and the Priest is an Evil Reactionary afraid of change. The TropeNamer (see below) is actually quite neutral, by most understandings.

How the Turbulent Priest conducts himself depends on his rank and standing. If he is the equivalent of a Monk or Parish priest, he may offer sympathies to the hero, hide him in a SecretUndergroundPassage under the church, and give him food and supplies. If the work is set in TheEmpire or similar, expect him to be part of LaResistance and usually given more freedom than the average citizen, because the Church retains some power and would not like to see its clergy picked on. If the Turbulent Priest is a bishop or other high-ranking member of the Church, expect him to publicly decry the plans, encourage resistance, and be able to deploy resources (financial and personnel--heavily-armed KnightTemplar warrior-monks). If his beef is with one person, sometimes questioning whether his soul is as safe as he thinks is an effective deterrent. Both styles may overlap with a BadassPreacher or a ChurchMilitant; the antagonist one is usually a SinisterMinister.

** King Baelor the Blessed from the backstory proves an interesting case. He was an utter pacifist who walked barefoot across the continent to make peace with his elder brother's enemies, and constantly gave away the kingdom's treasury to the poor, but it was only through the political savvy of his machiavellian uncle Viserys that the nobility were kept from rebelling. In ''Literature/TheWorldOfIceAndFire'', it is suggested Baelor might have been assassinated because he got in his head that all infidels must be converted, which would have led to a humongous civil war against the Northmen and Ironborn, who practice different faiths from the rest of Westeros. That said, even Baelor backed away from reviving the Faith Militant, so yes even the Befuddled One had more political sense than Cersei (though again that was due to his pacifism -- he felt no weapons were needed, only prayer).

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Thomas Becket, [[TropeNamer as described above]].
* The potential, and actual involvement, of major religious organizations in political matters is one of the main reasons that many secular radical political movements try to curb religious institutions, religious people and/or religion itself from taking power.
** During UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution, the Catholic Church was the largest landowner in France and in order to reform the economy, the newly formed National Assembly voted to sell Church property (a move supported by soon-to-be-former Bishop Talleyrand) and most controversially promulgated a Civic Constitution of the Clergy that made the French Catholic Church subservient to the national government, and priests and bishops into government servants. This was seen by French Catholics as invasive and threatening to their religion, was denounced by the Pope, and directly led to a CivilWar in the Vendee.
*** Ironically the same Catholics greatly resented some of the Constitutional Clergy who fell out of favor with the rise of UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte (who managed to win a Concordat with the Church to heal religious disputes). From their perspectives, the likes of Abbe Gregoire, a civic clergyman, who advocated abolitionism, clampdown on antisemitism, and also advocated for the preservation of Church monuments and relics during the Revolution, fell into disfavor. Gregoire, a devout Catholic and firm revolutionary, strongly opposed Napoleon's plan to roll back the Church reform with the Concordat and to the end of his life, even during the Restoration, refused to abjure his oath to the discredited Civic Constitution.
** During UsefulNotes/RedOctober, the Russian Orthodox Church was widely despised for its support of the deeply unpopular Tsar, its nasty antisemitism and opposition to any reforms and revolutions. So naturally, the Bolsheviks felt compelled to suppress the Orthodox Church by promoting state atheism, by supporting minority religions (such as Russian Muslims, Jews and Old Believers), and by actively executing clergymen and closing down churches. This policy ended with Stalin, a centrist who made an effort to restore some of the privileges of the battered Orthodox Church, albeit within limits. He especially tapped into this sentiment during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII despite being an atheist on a personal level. He also reversed Lenin's policies towards religious minorities.
* During [[UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution the Cristero War]], President [[MeaningfulName Calles]] restricted religious freedom in Mexico so as to turn it into a secular state. Because 90% of the country's population was Catholic, this was an unpopular move to say the least. The Catholics revolted, and kept fighting until America negotiated a peace. President Calles [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder immediately broke his end of the deal]], but soon he was exiled and there was a Catholic president in Mexico again. Today, most of Calles' anti-clerical laws are unenforced.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Hidalgo_y_Costilla Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla]] started the Mexican War of Independence by issuing the [[RousingSpeech Cry of Dolores]] for the people of New Spain to [[ItsALongStory revolt against their Spaniard overlords to restore King Ferdinand VII as King of Spain]], managing to raise an army of 90,000 peasants in the process. He was defeated and executed, but his rebellion inspired more to rise up in his stead, eventually leading to Mexico's independence from Spain.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II Pope John Paul II]] actively encouraged the Solidarity movement in Poland, which resisted Communism. Some people credit the man with being a major part in Communism's non-violent downfall.
** And he was far from being the only one. In TheEighties, Father [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Popieluszko Jerzy Popieluszko]] was an activist preacher involved in the Solidarity movement, and murdered by the secret police.
*** A fairly large number of Catholic religious officials in Catholic parts of the Soviet bloc (as well as the Russian Empire) were actively involved in activities against the regime. One, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josyf_Slipyj Cardinal Josif Slipyj of Ukraine]], provided the model for the fictitious Cardinal Lakota in the novel ''Shoes of the Fishermen''. On the other hand, unfortunately many informed the secret police.
* Jaime Cardinal [[UnfortunateNames Sin]], the Archbishop of Manila, was one of the main figures in the revolution that brought Philippine dictator Marcos down.
* During the UsefulNotes/BrazilianMilitaryRegime, the government was a right-wing Catholic junta who (initially) enjoyed the Church's support, yet several individual priests, nuns and bishops were persecuted alongside Marxists and leftists for speaking out against it. One of them, Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, helped save the torture records in the Brazilian dictatorship and store them abroad for later use (as evidence against the torturers, hopefully, but, at the very least, as a registry of that dark period), besides providing aid and abode for those that resisted said dictatorship. He actually managed to copy all or most of the records in a measly 24 hours as well by using the structure of the Church (and against the wishes of its conservative side, which meant he had to do it subtly).
* Another example from Brazil: some bishops of the "Sul-1" branch of the Church tried to interfere in the Brazilian presidential elections in 2010, using abortion (changes to abortion laws weren't really being discussed) as an excuse to attack a candidate, ignoring the rules the Church itself set regarding interference in politics in the process. It got bad enough that the Pope became known to some people as the losing candidate's most effective campaign volunteer.
* Marco Arana in Peru interacted on behalf of natives against mining companies and other such forces. He even founded a political party! However, this involvement in politics got him expelled from the church. Other priests have also gotten involved but not to the same extent.
* Some clerics, Catholic and Protestant, were this to the Nazis. Many preached against the party's actions from the pulpit, while others hid those bound for the camps in their orphanages and abbeys. Several of these {{badass preacher}}s were caught by the Nazi's and imprisoned and/or killed.
** Catholic cardinals Von Preysing and Von Galen and Protestant minister Bonhoeffer were determined enemies of the Nazi regime and, as such, were loathed by Hitler who said "the foulest of carrion are those who come clothed in the cloak of humility and the foulest of these Count Presying! What a beast!". Coming from Hitler, it is a huge compliment to the moral fortitude of these men.
** Fortunately Von Preysling was protected from Nazi retaliation by his high position. Unfortunately, his cathedral administrator, confidant, and fellow TurbulentPriest Bernard Lichtenberg, was not. Lichtenberg served at St. Hedwig's Cathedral from 1932, and was under the watch of the Gestapo by 1933 for his courageous support of prisoners and Jews. He became a confidante of Bishop von Preysing from 1935. He ran Von Preysing's aid unit, the Hilfswerke beim Bischöflichen Ordinariat Berlin, which secretly gave assistance to those who were being persecuted by the regime. From 1938, Lichtenberg conducted prayers for the Jews and other inmates of the concentration camps, including "my fellow priests there". For preaching against Nazi propaganda and writing a letter of protest concerning Nazi euthanasia, he was arrested in 1941, sentenced to two years of penal servitude, [[TearJerker and died en route to Dachau Concentration Camp in 1943]].
** While some have believed that Hitler was Christian, his personal views were complex. He was raised Catholic, but by the time he was an adult he had a highly syncretized set of personal beliefs. He concluded a Concordat with the Vatican (overseen by Monsignor Pacelli, the future UsefulNotes/PopePiusXII) and several Protestant and Catholic priests advocated voting for Nazis over the Social Democrats, but this did not mean he supported Christianity or saw Nazi Culture as Christian. He considered Christian concerns with compassion and charity a significant weakness. Hitler also believed the core values of Nazism – like nationalism, obedience and loyalty to the state – were contradicted by religious teachings. Still the Church was sufficiently powerful that Hitler never made any great campaign to curb or persecute Christians [[http://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/religion-in-nazi-germany/ until 1936 onwards, one such instance being that 15,000 Jehovah's Witness were detained in concentration camps where a quarter of them died]]. In the later stages of his regime, Hitler also sought to replace Christianity with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reich_Church the National Reich Church]] which, among other things, sought to prohibit the printing of Bibles and replace the Christian cross with the swastika. The "[[InNameOnly German Christian]]" movement was formed to fuse Nazi ideology with Christianity, aiming to overhaul and then replace the latter.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola Girolamo Savonarola]], the 15th-century Florentine preacher, political reformer, and self-proclaimed prophet. He was charismatic enough to have won converts like Creator/SandroBotticelli [[MadArtist who willingly burned his own paintings during the Bonfire of the Vanities]]. It ended however in overall failure because, as Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli said, Savonarola was a charismatic but unarmed prophet and he had no army to enforce his theocracy before his defeat. He was [[BurnTheWitch burned]] as a [[TheHeretic heretic]] by the Roman Inquisition after denouncing UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_Jong-nam Son Jong-nam]] was a North Korean defector and Christian missionary, who died in a Pyongyang prison after being arrested in 2006. In January 1998, Son defected from the tyrannical regime, took his wife and daughter and fled North Korea, joining his brother in Yanji, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region in northeast China's Jilin province. A South Korean missionary, who lived in the region on the pretext of involvement in the lumber business, sheltered them for some time after their arrival. However, Son's wife died of leukemia seven months later. Son, distraught, began to grow closer to the missionary, leading to his eventual conversion to Christianity; he then aided the missionaries in converting other North Korean defectors in China. He was arrested by Chinese police and deported back to North Korea in January 2001, where his brother says he suffered electrical shocks and beatings with clubs, causing a limp in his leg and the loss of 32 kilograms (71 lb) of body weight. Son returned to North Korea with Bibles and cassette tapes in an effort to preach to the people in his home country. However, in January 2006, police found the Bibles at his home in Hoeryong and arrested him again. According to his brother, the charges were illegal border crossing, meeting with enemies of the state, and disseminating anti-state literature.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Romero Oscar Romero]], a Catholic archbishop in UsefulNotes/ElSalvador during the Salvadoran Civil War. He spoke out against the persecution of priests and human rights abuses carried out by the Salvadoran government and was consequently assassinated during Mass by a member of a state-sponsored death squad. He was canonized on October 14, 2018. While the socialist guerrillas were led by communists, the past military regimes and the fascistic death squads were so deplorable that much of the Church actively supported the guerrillas, partially motivated by a socialistic interpretation of Christianity known as liberation theology.
* Cardinal [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Enrique_y_Tarancón Vicente Enrique y Tarancón]] was despised by the most immovilist elements of the Franco dictatorship to the point of being greeted with the cry ''¡Tarancón al Paredón!'' ("Gun down Tarancón!") at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrero_Blanco Carrero Blanco]]'s funeral. It should be noted that after Vatican II the Franco dictatorship was a bigger Catholic hardliner than the Vatican itself.
* In medieval China, a wandering monk named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongwu_Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang]] put an end to 100 years of Mongol rule in China and seized the throne as the Hongwu Emperor, first of the Ming Dynasty [[note]]''Hongwu'' was Zhu's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_era_name era name]]; his decree that every emperor from him onwards should only have one era name lasted until the fall of the Qing Dynasty more than 500 years later. A rare exception was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Yingzong_of_Ming Ming Yingzong]], who had two separate reigns and thus two era names.[[/note]]. Since he had been born in a dirt-poor farming family, his is also one of the most epic RagsToRoyalty stories ever.
* Fr. Alexis Toth, a saint in the American Orthodox Church, to the American Catholic Church. Originally an Eastern Catholic priest ministering to Ukrainian immigrants in Minnesota, he was enraged by how his flock was treated as second-class Catholics for following the Greek Rite rather than the Roman. He not only quit Catholicism to join the Orthodox Church, but he also led many thousands of Eastern European immigrants to follow him as well.
* St Josaphat Kuntsevych was a 17th-century Lithuanian Basilian monk of the Ruthenian Catholic Church who ministered when Lithuania was divided between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches; he sought Catholic unity and tried to bring the two Churches together, but the Eastern Christians feared that unity with Rome meant suppressing their Byzantine traditions and replacing them with Latin liturgical rites; the Polish clergy, on the other hand, demanded exactly just that. Being a Catholic, [[TakeAThirdOption St Josaphat swore fidelity to Rome, but he maintained preserving the Byzantine traditions of his Church]], faced opposition from both sides. On 12 November, he confronted a violently angry Orthodox mob, who then killed him, dragged his mangled body around, and threw it into the river.
* The {{Trope Maker}}s were probably the Biblical prophets, who prophesied against the corruption of the people, the priests, and above all, the kings of Israel and Judah. For example, Moses' opposition to the Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus.
* Many leaders of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement in the U.S. starting in the 1950s were religious leaders, with the most famous examples being UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr and UsefulNotes/MalcolmX. Many leaders in the continuing effort to correct racial injustices in American society today are also religious leaders.
* Priests following the Liberation Theology loudly protested against Central and South American dictators and some paid for this with their lives.
* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicariate_of_Solidarity Vicariate of Solidarity]] aka ''Vicaría de la Solidaridad'' was an agency of the Chilean Catholic Church under the Archdiocese of Santiago, during the dictatorship of UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet. Founded at the request of [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope Paul VI]] and led by Cardinal [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Silva_Henriquez Raúl Silva Henríquez]], it had many other members of the clergy among its members.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Hurtado Saint Alberto Hurtado]], the second Chilean Saint, was considered as one of these in his initial years and was even given the unflattering nickname of "Cura Rojo" (Red Priest), alluding to his supposed "Communist" views.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ball_(priest) John Ball]], a leader in the English Peasant's Revolt of 1381, was a Lollard priest. He preached a radical social egalitarianism, supporting it with his interpretation of the Bible. Like the other Revolt leaders, he was hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Želivský Jan Želivský]] was a Czech priest who triggered the Bohemian Crusades by literally throwing the city council of Prague out of the window after his teacher Jan Hus was burned at the stake because of his radical ideas for church reformation, which the King of Bohemia and the Pope didn't take too kindly. Želivský served as one of the {{rebel leader}}s, and while he was executed by beheading later on, the rebels eventually won out after more than 25 years of fighting and the Bohemian Church gained its independence from the Papacy.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antônio_Conselheiro Antônio Conselheiro]] was a Brazilian preacher that supported the monarchy and opposed the newly formed Republic established by rich farmers who deposed [[UsefulNotes/PedroII Dom Pedro II]]. He rallied support from the disenfranchised, former slaves and many others into creating an autonomous community in the Northeast, which culminated in a conflict known as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Canudos Canudos War]], the bloodiest CivilWar in Brazilian history.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdan_Zimonjić Bogdan Zimonjić]], a Serbian Orthodox priest that advocated freedom for his nation from the UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire and led two uprisings to achieve that. Also doubles as a BadassPreacher, since he personally served as ''voivode'' or military commander.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Tumart Ibn Tumart]] declared a ''jihad'' to topple the [[UsefulNotes/MoorishSpain Almoravid Empire]] whom he regarded as corrupt and "insufficiently pious". Keep in mind the Almoravids were way more conservative than the previous Muslim rulers in Iberia. Tumart was considered such radical by his contemporaries that he was expelled from every city he visited (including Mecca during his pilgrimage) because he preached Muslims had strayed from their religion and "purification" was needed. Nevertheless, he gained a big enough and devoted following to successfully overthrow the Almoravids. Unlike other examples of this trope, he actually went a step further by proclaiming himself the [[AGodAmI Mahdi]] - the Islamic Messiah - to legitimize his campaign.
[[/folder]]

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Romero Oscar Romero]], a Catholic archbishop in UsefulNotes/ElSalvador during the Salvadoran Civil War. He spoke out against the persecution of priests and human rights abuses carried out by the Salvadoran government and was consequently assassinated during Mass by a member of a state-sponsored death squad. He was canonized on October 14, 2018.

* St Josaphat Kuntsevych was a 17th-century Lithuanian Basilian monk of the Ruthenian Catholic Church who ministered when Lithuania was divided between the two Churches. He sought Catholic unity and tried to bring the Catholic and Orthodox Churches together. Being a Catholic, St Josaphat swore fidelity to Rome, but he faced opposition from the Eastern Christians, who feared that unity with Rome meant suppressing their Byzantine traditions and replacing them with Latin liturgical rites. At the same time, he also faced opposition from the Polish clergy, who demanded that St Josaphat's diocese abandon their Byzantine traditions and take up the Latin rites. On 12 November, he confronted a violently angry Orthodox mob, who then killed him, dragged his mangled body around, and threw it into the river.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Blackadder}} I'' has the title character, the younger son of the king, made Archbishop of Canterbury after his father had the previous one assassinated for being turbulent. Blackadder spends the whole episode trying not to make waves, even attempting to talk a dying nobleman ''out of'' leaving all his money to the church. The king celebrates the fact that, unlike Henry II, he will never have to ask "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" Unfortunately, a pair of drunken knights [[OutOfContextEavesdropping overhear part of the conversation]] and think it means they should go kill the new archbishop.

Named for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury]], who spent most of his tenure arguing with King Henry II over his plans to exercise increased royal control over the Church in England, leading Henry II to utter the quote at the top of the page. There was no real right or wrong side from a modern perspective, as Henry saw clergy abuse the Ecclesiastical Legal system to escape secular punishment, and Becket saw the sovereignty of the Church as being threatened by an overreaching monarch; in summary, both were convinced the other was going to make a power-grab then abuse that power. Interestingly, [[BeamMeUpScotty what Henry actually said about Becket is not exactly known]], though several of his knights apparently [[RhetoricalRequestBlunder took the quote as a royal execution order]], and murdered the Archbishop at the altar of his own cathedral, getting their king in trouble with the Pope.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola Girolamo Savonarola]], the 15th-century Florentine preacher, political reformer, and self-proclaimed prophet. He was charismatic enough to have won converts like Sandro Botticelli [[MadArtist who willingly burned his own paintings during the Bonfire of the Vanities]]. It ended however in overall failure because, as Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli said, Savonarola was a charismatic but unarmed prophet and he had no army to enforce his theocracy before his defeat. He was [[BurnTheWitch burned]] as a [[TheHeretic heretic]] by the Roman Inquisition after denouncing UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI.

* St Josaphat Kuntsevych was a 17th-century Lithuanian Basilian monk of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, when Lithuania was divided between the two Churches. He sought Catholic unity and tried to bring the Catholic and Orthodox Churches together, but, while swearing allegiance to the Latin Church, opposed the Polish clergy who sought to suppress the Byzantine traditions in the name of unity to the Latin Church. On 12 November, he confronted a violently angry Orthodox mob, who then killed him, dragged his mangled body around, and threw it into the river.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Romero Oscar Romero]], a Catholic archbishop in UsefulNotes/ElSalvador during the Salvadoran Civil War. He spoke out against the persecution of priests and human rights abuses carried out by the Salvadoran government and was consequently assassinated during Mass by a member of a state-sponsored death squad. He is to be canonized on October 14, 2018.

A Turbulent Priest is a member of the clergy who will resist the plans of somebody with power. Usually their fight is with a secular authority who threatens the Church or general morality, but they also often struggle against other clergy attempting to subvert what the Church stands for.

This trope can be depicted in either a positive or a negative light. If the Turbulent Priest is portrayed as in the right, his opponent is usually interested in money or power, and will quite gladly engage in [[KickTheDog animal cruelty]], torture, executions and other immoral behavior to get it (sometimes said opponent will also attack the church to try and remove any opposition). They could also just be someone who has [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney money]] [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections or]] [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem power]] and [[ItsAllAboutMe thinks this gives them the right to kick anyone in their way]], with this often being TruthInTelevision regarding such situations. If he's in the wrong, the Secular Authority is generally trying to improve society, and the Priest is an Evil Reactionary afraid of change. The TropeNamer (see below) is actually quite neutral by most understandings.

* In ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys'', two {{Badass Preacher}}s aide Kanna and Kenji's friends in the fight against the Friend cult, both of which are reformed criminals: Father Nitani, [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian a Japanese priest]], and Father Luciano, an Italian cardinal.

** There have been a few references for Cross Marian being a priest. He's referred to as "Father" by Ba Ba. When Allen first meets him, he assumes he's a priest. The mangaka, Hoshino, [[http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/silverfang2/29185537/211901/211901_1000.jpg has drawn him wearing priest robes]] in one of her character books. And Mother, an old friend of his, seems to live in a church. We hear from her in the Reverse novels that she watches over it when Cross is away. However, Cross has not been shown to have any respect for The Black Order. He's an Exorcist general of the organization, who has stated he hates going to HQ. And prior to the story had cut off communication with them for 4 years.
** The Vatican of The Order has shown to have a good bit of corruption. The Exorcists are seen as warriors of God. But The Order is responsible for many experiments on people, trying to force synchronization of Innocence with some, which kills them.And there's no problem kidnapping people and forcing them to become Exorcists, such as young Lenalee, who was taken from her only family to work for The Order. Whenever she tried to escape, Director Lvellie would catch her and bring her back. It eventually led to her trying to commit suicide, at which she was captured and restrained to her bed. Along with the Second and Third Exorcist programs. Cross has actually been allied with a Noah for over 35 years and working with him. But despite hating the Order, and working with a Noah, he never became a Fallen One as Summan Dark did upon betraying Innocence and the Order to the Noah in attempt to save his own life.

* Subverted in the movie ''Film/BlackDeath''. The young monk is [[OnlySaneMan the only man]] who recognizes that most witch-burnings are the result of hysterical superstition, and initially sides with the villagers against the knights. Then he finds out it's a [[TownWithADarkSecret Village With A Dark Secret]]...

* Subverted in the Movie ''Film/DraculaUntold''. The bearded monk is horrified when he finds out Dracula is a vampire, exposes this to his people and extols Dracula to cure himself or die. Dracula himself is benevolent and using this power to save his people from the Ottoman Turkish Empire. However, the other vampires he creates are bloodthirsty and malicious as the monk feared, and the monk saves Dracula's son from them by repelling them with a [[HolyIsNotSafe crucifix]], leading [[WellIntentionedExtremist Dracula]] to realize [[EvilIsNotAToy how dangerous vampirism is]].

** Its spinoff book ''Literature/FireAndBlood'' had the Shepherd, a one armed preacher who, upon the death of [[spoiler: Heleana Targaryen]], took advantage of the rabbles anger and railed against the Targaryen's and their dragons. This grew to the point that the Smallfolk [[spoiler: stormed the Dragonpit, the stables that house the majority of the dragons of Westeros, killing five of them and, in the process, getting the Crown Prince Joffrey Targaryen killed.]] The Shepherd drew hundreds to his cause, but eventually was defeated and arrested by the invading Baratheon force. [[spoiler: Refusing to repent to Aegon II, his tongue was torn out and he was burned alive, along with his most loyal followers.]]

** The key obstacle preventing the Ironborn from assimilating into the rest of Westeros are the Drowned Men priests. They often prove to be far more resilient and determined than the Kings, especially Garlon Whitestaff (who is credited with uniting the Iron Islands into a single realm, something that is usually the task of kings) and Shrike, who rose against the three Harmunds when they sought to bring the Faith of the Seven and Andal influence to the Iron Islands and stop reaving.

** The events of Thomas Beckett’s death and it’s implications are the focus in Part Six.

* A villainous example in ''Literature/TheDinosaurLords'' with father Tavaros, the Papal Legate (army chaplain) sent to look after spiritual health of Correction Army. In fact, he has a doctrinal feud with this army's commander, and constantly tries to undermine him. He also encourages the more rebellious elements of the army to RapePillageAndBurn, and propagates the "let the gods sort them out" mentality.

* ''Literature/{{Caliphate}}'' has several Catholic priests breaking shariah law by attempting to proselytize Christianity and get crucified for their troubles. Their martyrdom helps a [[ChildSoldiers young janissary]] to rebel against the corrupt, decayed caliphate.

** Recurring antagonist Vedek[[note]]equivalent to a bishop or cardinal[[/note]], later Kai[[note]]pope[[/note]] Winn Adami crosses over with SinisterMinister. She's opposed to the Federation's secularism (her first appearance has her tangling with Keiko O'Brien over teaching the secular view of the Bajoran wormhole and the SufficientlyAdvancedAliens who live within and are deified by the Bajoran faith) and at one point backs a coup attempt against the Bajoran provisional government. She has her sympathetic moments, too, and tt's ambiguous how much of it is her personal lust for power and how much she genuinely believes.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E02RocksAndShoals Rocks and Shoals]]" has a Bajoran priestess publicly hang herself on Deep Space 9's Promenade in protest of the Dominion occupation of station and the Bajoran system. This spurs Major Kira to start covertly working against the Dominion.

** The short story ''The Last Church'', set before the Great Crusade, features Uriah, the priest who looks after the last church on Terra. He spends the story debating the need for religion with a mysterious stranger who turns out to be the GodEmperor of Mankind in disguise. Then he proceeds to [[WhatTheHellHero call out]] the Emperor in front of a crowd of Thunder Warriors (prototype SpaceMarines) and walks back into his burning church to die in the flames.
** During the Age of Apostasy, the [[CorruptChurch corrupt head of the Ecclesiarchy]] (and [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Administratum]], and [[{{Mooks}} Munitorum]]) Goge Vandire ruled with an iron fist until he was opposed by a firebrand preacher known as Sebastian Thor. Thor whipped his followers into a frenzy and started a rebellion, which Vandire sent a fleet to crush. The entire battlefleet was obliterated by [[NegativeSpaceWedgie a Warp storm]] that was taken to be a sign from the God-Emperor himself, and a full-blown civil war resulted.

* ''Murder in the Cathedral'' by Creator/TSEliot is a well-known dramatisation of the story of the TropeNamer.

* Turbulent Priests tend to pop up a lot in {{Random Event}}s in Creator/ParadoxInteractive games, such as ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings'' and ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis''. Revolts and / or stability drops tend to follow in their wake, leading to much frustrating head-clutching.

* If the respect of the Religion Faction in ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}} 4'' drops too low, they'll begin preaching against El Presidente's rule, lowering the opinion of everyone who visits a church (i.e. everybody). In general, priests are troublesome when they get unhappy, because it causes a lot of unrest to spill over if they're executed.

* The potential, and actual involvement, of major religious organizations in political matters is one of the main reasons that many secular radical political movements make an effort to curb religious institutions, religious people and/or religion itself on taking power.
** During UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution, the Catholic Church was the largest landowner in France and in order to reform the economy, the newly formed National Assembly voted to sell Church property (a move supported by soon-to-be-former Bishop Talleyrand) and most controversially promulgated a Civic Constitution of the Clergy that made the French Catholic Church subservient to the national government, and priests and bishops into government servants. This was seen by French Catholics as invasive and threatening to their religion, was denounced by the Pope and directly led to a CivilWar in the Vendee.
*** Ironically the same Catholics greatly resented some of the Constitutional Clergy who fell out of favor with the rise of UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte (who managed to win a Concordat with the Church to heal religious disputes). From their perspectives, the likes of Abbe Gregoire, a civic clergyman, who advocated abolitionism, clampdown on antisemitism and also advocated for the preservation of Church monuments and relics during the Revolution, fell into disfavor. Gregoire, a devout Catholic and firm revolutionary, strongly opposed Napoleon's plan to roll-back the Church reform with the Concordat and to the end of his life, even during the Restoration, refused to abjure his oath to the discredited Civic Constitution.
** During UsefulNotes/RedOctober, the Russian Orthodox Church was widely despised for its support of the deeply unpopular Tsar, its nasty antisemitism and opposition to any reforms and revolutions. So naturally the Bolsheviks felt compelled to suppress the Orthodox Church by promoting state atheism, by supporting minority religions (such as Russian Muslims, Jews and Old Believers), and by actively executing clergymen and closing down churches. This policy ended with Stalin, a centrist who made an effort to restore some of the privileges of the battered Orthodox Church, albeit within limits. He especially tapped into this sentiment during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII despite being an atheist on a personal level. He also reversed Lenin's policies towards religious minorities.

*** A fairly large number of Catholic religious officials in Catholic parts of the Soviet bloc (as well as the Russian Empire) were actively involved in activities against the regime. One, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josyf_Slipyj Cardinal Josif Slipyj of Ukraine]], provided the model for the fictitious Cardinal Lakota in the novel ''Shoes of the Fishermen''. On the other hand, unfortunately many informed for the secret police.

** Fortunately Von Preysling was protected from Nazi retaliation by his high position. Unfortunately his cathedral administrator, confidant and fellow TurbulentPriest Bernard Lichtenberg, was not. Lichtenberg served at St. Hedwig's Cathedral from 1932, and was under the watch of the Gestapo by 1933 for his courageous support of prisoners and Jews. He became a confidante of Bishop von Preysing from 1935. He ran Von Preysing's aid unit, the Hilfswerke beim Bischöflichen Ordinariat Berlin, which secretly gave assistance to those who were being persecuted by the regime. From 1938, Lichtenberg conducted prayers for the Jews and other inmates of the concentration camps, including "my fellow priests there". For preaching against Nazi propaganda and writing a letter of protest concerning Nazi euthanasia, he was arrested in 1941, sentenced to two years penal servitude, [[TearJerker and died en route to Dachau Concentration Camp in 1943]].

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola Girolamo Savonarola]], the 15th-century Florentine preacher, political reformer, and self-proclaimed prophet. He was charismatic enough to have won converts like Sandro Botticelli [[MadArtist who willingly burned his own paintings during the Bonfire of the Vanities]]. It ended however in overall failure because, as Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli said, Savonarola was a charismatic but an unarmed prophet and he had no army to enforce his theocracy before his defeat. He was [[BurnTheWitch burned]] as a [[TheHeretic heretic]] by the Roman Inquisition after denouncing UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_Jong-nam Son Jong-nam]] was a North Korean defector and Christian missionary, who died in a Pyongyang prison after being arrested in 2006. In January 1998, Son defected from the tyrannical regime, took his wife and daughter and fled North Korea, joining his brother in Yanji, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region in northeast China's Jilin province. A South Korean missionary, who lived in the region on the pretext of involvement in the lumber business, sheltered them for some time after their arrival. However, Son's wife died of leukemia seven months later. Son, distraught, began to grow closer to the missionary, leading to his eventual conversion to Christianity; he then aided the missionaries in converting other North Korean defectors in China. He was arrested by Chinese police and deported back to North Korea in January 2001, where his brother says he suffered electrical shocks and beatings with clubs, causing a limp in his leg and the loss of 32 kilograms (71 lb) of body weight. Son returned to North Korea with Bibles and cassette tapes in an effort to proselytize people in his home country. However, in January 2006, police found the Bibles at his home in Hoeryong and arrested him again. According to his brother, the charges were illegal border crossing, meeting with enemies of the state, and disseminating anti-state literature.

* Fr. Alexis Toth, a saint in the American Orthodox Church, to the American Catholic Church. Originally an Eastern Catholic priest ministering to Ukrainian immigrants in Minnesota, he was enraged by the way his flock was treated as second-class Catholics for following Greek rather than Roman rite. He not only quit Catholicism to join the Orthodox Church, he led many thousands of Eastern European immigrants to follow him as well.
* The {{Trope Maker}}s were probably the Biblical prophets, who prophesied against the corruption of the people, the priests, and above all, the kings of Israel and Judah. For example, Moses' opposition of the Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' plays with this in the form of two minor NPC's, a Hanar evangelist and a Turian C-Sec officer. It's a neutral situation of GreyAndGreyMorality, as the evangelist is preaching in the Presidium, where all preaching is forbidden as a form of religious neutrality (those who wish to do so must obtain a permit and preach elsewhere), but the C-sec officer is trying to move him along out of bigotry against the Hanar and/or their religion (as he only refers to the evangelist using a racial slur and the religion's he's espousing as "nonsense"). Siding with either, depending on how it's done, can get either Paragon points, Renegade points, both or none.