Badass Preacher / Real Life

• Cesare Lodeserto rescues sex-trafficked women, putting his life at stake.
• The Four Chaplains
• William Addison, Theodore Hardy, and Edward Mellish. All three were chaplains as well, in the British Army during WWI, and all received the Victoria Cross. How does a chaplain get a VC? They all went out into active combat areas to rescue the wounded, and Hardy died as a result in 1918. The other two lived to ripe old ages.
• In WWII we have John Weir Foote, a Canadian Army chaplain who went into the disastrous Dieppe raid. He brought wounded in to the first aid station under fire, and later carried wounded men to escape craft during the evacuation. When the time came to leave or be left, he decided to stay behind and continue helping the wounded and minister to the POWs he would soon be among. He got a Victoria cross as well.
• Father Francis P. Duffy, chaplain of the Fighting 69th, whose bravery and leadership skills were so impressive, that Douglas Macarthur told him he was briefly considered for a regiment command. He is still the most heavily decorated priest in American military history,
• The Dutch missionary Father Emery de Klerk. In defense of his native parishioners in the Solomon Islands he made himself something of a warlord, ambushing Japanese patrols, sending coast watching reports, and rescuing downed fliers.
• Father Emil Kapaun, a Catholic priest from Kansas who served as a chaplain in the US Army during the Korean War. Kapaun was known for selfless heroism and ensuring the survival of the other soldiers, both in combat and when he was taken prisoner by Communist forces. He eventually succumbed to pneumonia in a POW camp. He is a candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church, and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President Obama in 2013.
• Latter-Day Saint scholar Hugh Nibley. Serving as a missionary for two years in Germany, his major temptation was not girls but studying ancient Greek. He then went home and earned a doctorate in History. During the war, even though he went through ROTC, he enlisted in the Army, became a master-sergeant in Intelligence, assigned to the elite Order of Battle and fights in the European theater with the 101st Airborne, participating the landing at Utah Beach and a number of other key battles. What did he do after the war? Research and write about theology and history, raise a family, and serve in various positions in the LDS church.
• Mormon history is full of these guys, going back all the way to Joseph Smith. Whether or not you agree with his religious teachings, it's hard not to take a look at his life and conclude that the man had a personal CMOA list big enough to fill an average-sized wiki page. For example, singlehandedly stopping a runaway carriage with several members of Congress inside, and cowing a prison guard who was boasting about the way he and his buddies tortured and abused Mormon prisoners into submission with nothing but a good, strong dressing down and sheer force of charisma. And when they finally came to assassinate him, Smith and his fellow prisoners managed to fire some rounds back at the mob with guns they smuggled into the jail, then Smith jumped out a second-story window to draw the mob away from two friends who were in the room with him. (It worked; they both survived, one escaping completely unharmed, with the only casualties from the attack being Joseph and his brother Hyrum.)^note John Taylor one of the people who survived the attack on Smith (and a future president of the church himself) even had a bullet stopped inches from hitting his heart by a pocket watch he had in his jacket that day, the church now displays the watch in a museum in Salt Lake City. It goes back even farther than Joseph Smith. A lot of the most badass guys (and some girls, too) in The Book of Mormon were prophets or otherwise "mighty men of God." Mormon, Moroni, Helaman, Teancum, the list goes on and on.
  • Special mention goes to Porter Rockwell, who was given the nickname "The Destroying Angel of Mormondom." Read up on his life and you'll see that he earned it. When accused of attempting to assassinate Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs, Porter supposedly said "I never shot at anybody, if I shoot they get shot! ... He's still alive, ain't he?" He then asked for, and received, permission to put on a (carefully supervised) demonstration of his shooting skills for the court. After seeing what he was capable of, they found it persuasive enough to acquit.
• Saint Laurence, who is said to have been put to death for his faith on an iron grill. His response to the executioner? "Turn me over, sir, I'm done on this side!" ^note *It's for this smartass remark that he's the Patron Saint of comedians as well as cooks. He then prayed for Rome's conversion and died. Laurence was sentenced to death for a previous bit of badassery. He was arrested during the Valerian persecution and ordered to surrender the treasure of the church. He asked for three days to collect the treasure, and then appeared at the court with the poor, the sick, the maimed and the blind, declaring them to be "the treasure of the church" (Yes, it's only a legend)
• Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Spain. During the 30 Years War, the Swedish Army in Germany was considered one of the finest war machines in the world, and historians have since lauded their King Gustavus Adolphus's methods of war as truly revolutionary against the old techniques employed by the Spanish, previously the dominant military power. Although never ordained as a priest, the Cardinal-Infante received minor orders before being assigned to govern the Spanish Netherlands, then an active warzone. Rather than setting sail from Spain, and risking attack by the fearsome Dutch navy, he led his army along the Spanish Road, through Italy and Germany. Along the way, he happened upon the Swedish army; this was the only clash of Spanish and Swedish arms in history, the old ways squared off against revolutionary new methods that would lay the foundation for tactics for the next two hundred years. His seasoned general advised the cardinal-Infante not to give battle after Wallenstein refused to reinforce the army, and detached units had been depleted in prior battles. Ignoring his advisor, Ferdinand drew up his 'obsolete' tercios for battle, and utterly thrashed the Swedes in his very first battle. The Blue and Yellow regiments mounted fifteen assaults on the tercios, and were driven back each time; when the Spanish advanced, the Swedes scattered to the four winds; half the army was killed, wounded, or captured, and their general was captured. Continuing on his way to the Spanish Netherlands, Ferdinand inflicted stinging defeats on the Dutch and French armies, who'd also instituted revolutionary changes, and became successful enough that rumors abounded in court that he would make himself king in the Netherlands. Ultimately, it was disease, or perhaps poisoning, that defeated him last.
  • And on the Swedish side, there was Jakob Fabricius. He was the Royal Chaplain of Gustavus Adolphus. At the Battle of Lützen, the Swedish forces on his front were beginning to rout. It's reported that Fabricius gathered a few officers to him and began to sing a psalm, which prevented the rout.
• The Genius Bruisers from the Roman military who got converted to Christianity and were killed for it, whether their martyrdoms were hyperinflated or not. I.e.: Saint Sebastian, Saint Eustace, Saint Christopher, Saint George of Cappadocia, Saint Expeditus, Saint Alban...
  • The Catholic Church refers to several of these guys as the "Military Saints". Curiously this includes St. Francis of Assisi, likely on the grounds of him being a member of the military before becoming a preacher, even spending some time as a captive.
  • St Francis went to the Holy Land on his own to negotiate with Saladin in the middle of the Crusades. Saladin was so impressed that he invited the Franciscans back to Jerusalem. The Franciscan order is, to this day, the official custodians of the Holy Land in the Catholic Church.
• Christian martyrs could get a whole subcategory to themselves under this trope. While most of them weren't quite as proactive in the administration of the wrath of God as the other examples on this page, it takes some serious intestinal fortitude to not only refuse to recant under threat of incredible torture or death, but even (in one memorable case) calmly singing hymns while being burned alive.
  • The above applies to all but two of the original Twelve Apostles. ^note Judas hung himself shortly after his infamous betrayal, and John actually managed to live into old age. St. Peter even demanded that he be crucified upside-down because he felt unworthy to die in the same manner as Christ. Bear in mind that crucifixion was already considered the most shameful form of execution in Rome.
• Eric Liddell, winner of a gold medal in the 1924 Olympics. He refused on principle to run in a race that was scheduled for Sunday (the 100 m), then when he was rescheduled, he made his eccentricity look awesome when he won the medal in a race (the 400 m) for which he had not properly trained.^note Actually, that's the movie version. The real-life Liddell knew months in advance about the scheduling of the 100, and simply switched to the 400, an event in which he had also excelled. Later, during the war, he died of sickness while ministering to the needs of interned civilians in a Japanese prison camp. Eric could run FAST. So fast that once when he was hungry and far from a store, he ran down a rabbit, grabbed it and took it home to cook.
• Orde Wingate. A fanatical member of the Plymouth Brethren sect, an English soldier and a Zionist warrior who modeled himself after the Old Testament Hero, Gideon. While he was not a preacher officially, he might as well have been and he fits in this trope.
• Martin Luther King. The man utterly pwned the state of Alabama, with just dreams and sermons. He never threw a punch or fired a shot. "Not badass" you say? He got jailed, beat up, and ultimately assassinated, and never blinked. Once. That man intentionally brought the wrath of the Segregationist Establishment down on his head in order to expose the evils of segregation (and later militarism and systemic poverty), and he had the moral superiority not to respond to his oppressors in kind.
• Badass Preachers were a major staple of the Civil Rights Movement. Aside from Dr. King himself you had Ralph Abernathy, Jim Lawson, Kelly Miller Smith, CT Vivian, Bernard Lafayette and many others.
• The Rev. Moses Wright◊. That gesture, identifying one of the men who murdered his nephew Emmett Till, and snapped illicitly by a reporter, "signified intimidation of Delta blacks was no longer as effective as the past". Wright had "crossed a line that no one could remember a black man ever crossing in Mississippi". Many historians date the Civil Rights Movement as beginning at this moment.
• Malcolm X. An Islamic minister and public speaker who was willing to go to war for his rights, best known for raising himself from a petty criminal and drug addict to one of the most influential voices in the Civil Rights Movement. Physically imposing, tough enough to survive in the criminal underbelly of Harlem for several years, and enough presence and willpower to make local cops, the FBI, and his own corrupt former minster terrified by his mere existence. And contrary to his reputation, all of the accomplishments came without throwing a punch, firing a shot, or using anything more violent than harsh words. Badass, indeed.
• Earl Little, Malcolm X's father, also fits the bill. Like his son, he was a minister and black nationalist activist, but a Baptist and a member of Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association. When a group of racist farmers tried to run him out of his home when Malcolm was a kid, he intentionally delayed his plans to leave the state for a year just to spite them and show that he wasn't scared.
• There are the white Southern preachers who would invite and/or openly welcome members of black congregations to participate in their services as equals, often times causing resentment and even anger in their own congregations (and danger to themselves in older times). Maybe a more passive example, but they still went against the grain on the principle that all Christians are brothers and sisters in God.
• Another in a Civil Rights movement, although not in America, is Desmond Tutu. He supported disinvestment of South Africa, dropping the Rand down to force the racist government to rethink their position, organized peaceful marches, and openly spoke against the position of the church on homosexuality. Awesome.
• His Holiness the Dalai Llama, holy man and Tibetan freedom fighter.
• Thich Quang Duc. He set himself on fire in the name of religious freedom.
• Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican War of Independence. When the Spanish were alerted of the separatists and started to crack them down, Miguel Hidalgo ordered the church bells to be rung and called mass, he addressed the people in front of his church, encouraging them to revolt and starting a war that lasted over a decade.
• John Chivington was an American Civil War-era minister known as the "Fighting Parson". He was a dedicated abolitionist, and he even tried to preach against slavery in the South, where such views were not exactly welcome. He had an awesome moment during one sermon where pro-slavery agitators led a mob to his church and threatened to tar and feather him. Chivington simply whipped out a pair of revolvers and said "By the grace of God and these two revolvers, I will preach here today." When the Civil War broke out, he declined a position as a chaplain in favor of a combat role. He rose to become a colonel, but after the Civil War, did a Face–Heel Turn and was forced to resign in disgrace for killing hundreds of Cheyenne women and children at the Sand Creek Massacre.
• Fray Tormenta. A Mexican priest who supported his Orphanage of Love by fighting in the lucha libre circuits. Kept his identity a secret for more than 20 years so that people would take him seriously. He was the inspiration for King from Tekken, and the movie Nacho Libre. Now he even serves Masses with his mask on.
• Andrew White, aka the Bishop of Baghdad. He's been "hijacked, kidnapped, locked up in rooms with bits of finger and toe and things," and "been held at gunpoint, been attacked – the usual thing." And he has MS. And he wears a bullet-proof vest.
• Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The man was cannon-proof. This also extended to the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), which he founded with fellow ex-soldiers. To this day it maintains an almost military-style discipline among its members. This same society, noted for their extra vow of loyalty to the pope, would later grow in influence in the Catholic Church — to the point that the Protestant nations in Europe derogatorily called the Superior Generals of the Jesuits "Black Popes" due to their black robes and influence. The Jesuits were also widely acknowledged to have been the de facto intelligence agency of the Catholic Church, and a highly effective one at that.
  • Twelve Jesuit priests have been recognized by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Among the Nations" for risking their lives to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. 152 Jesuits were killed by the Nazis, who considered the order one of its most dangerous enemies (the order was specifically targeted by the Gestapo).
  • Ignatius' grand-nephew, Martin Ignacio de Loyola, was a Franciscan friar... and the first person to complete the world circumnavigation twice.
• Also one of the Righteous Among the Nations, Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens of the Greek Orthodox Church openly defied the local Schutzstaffel commander of the region by writing a letter to the people of Greece to unify and protect the Jews because they are all Greeks in the end, and several other reasons (The other wiki's page has a part of his famous letter). Quietly, he ordered the churches under his control to issue false baptism certificates to Jewish Greeks trying to escape. Thousands of Jews escaped because of his help. When the local Schutzstaffel commander threatened to execute him by firing squad in response to the letter, Damaskinos gave this sarcastic reply:
  Archbishop Damaskinos: According to the traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church, our prelates are hanged, not shot. Please respect our traditions!^note The hanging is referring to the lynching and hanging of Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople by a Turkish mob in 1821, the point being made that the SS commander would act in a similarly barbaric fashion if he were to carry out his threat.
• Boston College has a soft-spoken but no-nonsense philosophy professor named Fr. Paul McNellis, who spent the early 1970s as a special-forces officer in Vietnam, where he won a Bronze Star with Valor device.
• During the German occupation 1940-45, Norway's Lutheran bishops refused to submit to the political pressures of the collaborators running the government. Instead at Easter 1942, they distributed a defiant circular on their position that were read to the congregations by the vicars of almost all of Norway's churches. As a consequence, all bishops and 90% of the clergymen either resigned or were deposed and got interned in labour camps.
• Little Rock, Arkansas: After the assailant attacked him and his son-in-law with a poker, a 64-year-old minister shot a man dead on church grounds. The attacker had engaged in a string of assaults in an apparent drug-induced frenzy. -http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,107274,00.html
• Martin Luther: Lived through a thunderstorm in a graveyard, went on to be one of the first to stand up to the hegemony that was the Roman Catholic Church, changing the power structure of Europe forever. He was prosecuted as a heretic and before the Diet of Worms he stated : "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen." There's an apocryphal story that he woke up one night to see a demon standing next to his bed. He said, "Good night," rolled over, and went back to sleep. He even helped carry out an elaborate plot to rescue a group of nuns who wished to flee their harsh, restrictive monastery in favor of the Reformist movement, by smuggling them out in herring barrels. Luther then went on to marry one of them and have several children with her.
• Steve McGanahan aka World's Strongest Redneck. Also runs his own ministry.
• Thomas Muntzer, who lead the german peasants' war in 1525.
• Richard Wurmbrand. Was imprisoned for fourteen years in Communist Romania, was horrifically tortured in prison, and the last thing he does after his (eventual) release before leaving the country? Puts flowers on the grave of the man who arrested him.
• Martin Niemoeller. Theologian and U-Boat captain.
• Very shortly after the "Reginald Denny incident" that began the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, a group of young men took Fidel Lopez (a Latin-American immigrant) out of his vehicle, robbed and beat him. Reverend Newton (a local black minister) arrived on the scene and placed himself between the mob and Lopez, shouting, "Kill him and you have to kill me too." He succeeded in taking Lopez to safety.
• Athanasius of Alexandria. During the Arian controversy, "If the world is against Athanasius, then Athanasius is against the world". Not only that. As Bishop of Alexandria, he was exiled three times, only to come back and take the post again. As one of the leader of the anti-Arian movement in Christianity, he may have led mobs to break up and destroy the churches of the Arians, and is said to have personally destroyed one of the altars. Defied at least two emperors. Known for his fiery hair and temper.
• Father Jean Bernard, of Luxembourg, portrayed in the awesome film of Volker Schlöndorff "The Ninth Day". Being taken out of the camp of Dachau, offered a Deal with the Devil, tell the Nazi Hyerarch to go screw himself, and calmly go back to martyrdom in the camp (which he knew firsthandedly it was utter hell and a certain death) definitely makes you a badass preacher. Incredibly, he survived and so did his faith, what makes him even more badass.
• Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, a Polish Catholic priest who first was a missionary and thus went Walking the Earth for years. During World War II he was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp for openly speaking out against the Nazi regime through a newspaper and a private radio station, and sheltering (among others) 2,000 Jews, in a time where kangaroo courts and hanging judges summarily handed death sentences. He willingly went into the hunger bunker in place of of another prisoner, a Polish woodworker who had a wife and kids outside. He continued to celebrate Holy Mass in the cell for the other prisoners, and was finally killed by a fatal injection of phenol after all the other prisoners had already died of starvation. He was made a saint in October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, and the man whose life he saved was there.
• Aside of St. Maximilian Kolbe, there were many religious workers that were either imprisoned or killed in World War II for either: being members of persecuted minorities, speaking against the Nazi policies, or directly helping Jews/Roma/Catholics/etc. in distress:
  • Blessed Titus Brandsma, a Dutch Carmelite priest and uni professor who died in Dachau after rallying against Nazi propaganda;
  • Regina Jonas, one of the first female rabbis, who kept working for the Jewish faith in Theresienstadt before dying in Auschwitz;
  • Mother Elise Rivet, a Catholic mother superior who hid people in her convent and got gassed in Ravenbruck for it, in a Heroic Sacrifice to try sparing a prisoner who had kids;
  • Nanne Zwiep, a Dutch Reformed Church preacher who used his sermons to rally against Nazis and perished in Dachau as well;
  • Saint Edith Stein, a Jewish woman who became a Catholic nun and philosopher and then died in Auschwitz, alongside her sister Rose. There is backdraft about her as the Anti-Defamation League says the Catholic church is appropriating her death and diminishing the memory of the Holocaust; the official response is that she died not just because of her Catholic faith, but as a victim of the Nazi revenge for the Dutch Catholic Church's denouncement of Nazism.)
  • Blessed Bernhard Lichtenberg, Catholic priest from Silesia, who prayed for the victims of Kristallnacht and openly spoke against the Nazi euthanasia programs. This got him jailed first and then he was sent to Dachau, but he collapsed and died on the way there.
  • Jane Hanning, schoolteacher and missionary of the Church of Scotland, captured in Budapest after refusing to abandon the girls from the school she worked on, and killed in Auschwitz.
  • Blessed Sara Salkahazi, Hungarian/Slovakian nun who sheltered at least 100 Jewish persons and helped them flee Budapest. After her cover was blown and some of her protegèes were captured by a local pro-Nazi group, the Arrow Cross party, she and other five women were summarily executed by the Danube river.
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor, well-known theologist, and member of La Résistance against Nazi Germany. He not only broke off from the existing German Christians during World War II to oppose Nazism, but worked in Abwher as a double agent and plotted to assassinate Hitler. He was captured, imprisoned at Tegel prison and later executed summarily in the Flössenburg concentration camp with some fellow resistence fighters.
  • Blessed Omelyan Koch, Ukranian Greek-Catholic priest who was murdered in Majdanek for providing Jews with more than 600 baptismal certificates that helped them escape from the Nazis.
  • Saint Grigol Peradze, Georgian Orthodox priest, historian, and theologist who while imprisoned in Auschwitz, either took the blame for the murder of a German officer to spare his fellow prisoners or willingly entered a gas-chamber in the place of a Jewish prisoner who had a large family.
  • The Martyrs of Lübeck: three Catholic priests (Johannes Prassek, Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange) and a Lutheran pastor (Karl-Friedrich Stellbrink) who were True Companions and publically spoke against Nazism. They were imprisoned in 1942 and executed in 1943 for their work, and guillotined the same day and one after the other. Eyewitnesses reported that the blood of the four clergymen literally ran together on the guillotine and on the floor.
  • and many others.
• The Right Reverend General Leonidas Polk, (former) Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana who was killed at the Battle of Marietta and entombed in the University Chapel at Sewanee with his crozier in one hand and his saber in the other. Despite his General Failure tendencies and having recived his commission through high-ranking friendhips, he was absolutely adored by the men who served under him and indomintably courageous to boot.
• In mid-late nineteenth century America, being a Badass Preacher for a Catholic church was often an obligation, most infamously in New York, where priests would often lead their parishioners in defense of their churches from mobs of Protestants. There's a reason why so many churches are built like they're meant to withstand siege.
• Venetians thought Saint Mark was this, so much that they accepted him as their Patron Saint. The Venetian Battle Cry was Vive San Marco, which their sailors would shout while they carved up Genoans, Turks, Pirates, and such like. The heraldric emblem of St Mark was a lion which shows what they thought of Saint Mark.
• Athanasios Nikolaos Massavetas. Born during the Ottoman occupation of Greece, he was drawn to religion from an early age, became a monk at the age of 17, and was ordained a Greek Orthodox deacon shortly afterwards. Popular tradition has it that while at the monastery, an Ottoman Pasha visited with his troops and was impressed by Athanasios's good looks, who took offence to the Turk's remarks (and subsequent proposal). The ensuing altercation resulted in the death of the Turkish official. Athanasios was forced to flee into the nearby mountains and become a klepht - a mountain bandit, like many others who resisted Ottoman rule. Soon afterwards he adopted the pseudonym "Diakos", or Deacon. His last battle established him as a national hero: with only 1500 men at his command he attempted to hold the bridge at Alamana near Thermopylae against an army of 8000 men who had been sent to crush the rebellion in southern Greece. Eventually most of Diakos's men fled; only 48 of them remained, and the managed to hold off the enemy for several hours before being overwhelmed. The heavily wounded Diakos was taken before the enemy commander, Omer Vryonis, who was so impressed by the former priest that he offered to make him an officer in the Ottoman army if he converted from Christianity to Islam. Diakos refused, and was executed by impalement - according to popular tradition he survived for three full days, laughing through his ordeal, until an irregular, out of pity and respect, shot him in the head.
• A badass of the quietly courageous variety, Father Damien (aka Saint Damien of Moloka'i) spent sixteen years ministering to and fighting for the better treatment of the residents of the leper colony on the island of Moloka'i in Hawai'i. Many clergypeople spend their lives tending the sick, but Father Damien gets a lot of extra points, because at the time, leprosy was thought to be wildly contagious, which was why people who contracted it were sent to isolated colonies and usually just left to rot (sometimes quite literally). Voluntarily going to a place that was widely believed to be certain death and hanging around the place for nearly two decades, all the while in close contact with people suffering from what was believed to be an extremely contagious, deadly disease takes some balls. And sure enough, he did eventually contract leprosy, dying of the disease in 1889.
• Saint Columba, a 6th century missionary and one of Ireland's patron saints. So badass, he scared off the Loch Ness Monster.
• Jesus, while rarely violent, showed his righteous anger at the Temple Market sellers. He basically trashed the stalls and beat the sellers with a whip.
  He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
• Father Joe Lacy was a Chaplain in World War II who went in on D-day, and survived too. The day before landing he told the men "When you land on the beach and you get in there, I don't want to see anybody kneeling down and praying. If I do I'm gonna come up and boot you in the tail. You leave the praying to me and you do the fighting."
• Geoffrey Anketell Studdert-Kennedy; as a British Army Chaplain in WW I, he earned a Military Cross for running into "No Man's Land" to drag wounded soldiers to safety, and to give Last Rites to those who were beyond saving; after the war he became Vicar of a parish in one of the worst slums of Inner London. Although gentry by birth, he strongly identified with the working class, as this hymn shows.
• Rev. Wade Watts, who shamed a KKK leader into changing his ways. Bonus points for being a Badass Pacifist.
• The Archbishop of York, William de la Zouche, raised a company of archers against the Scots at the Curb-Stomp Battle of Neville's Cross, and his quick levying on his own initiative is credited with preventing a Scottish invasion of England and capturing the Scottish King David II Bruce. Another historical tradition says that he was present at the Battle of Crecy the previous year, and led some of the King's foot. On both occasions he took to the field wearing black plate armour and carrying an enormous mace, because he couldn't carry a sword as he was forbidden "edged weapons."
• Pope John Paul II during his studies for the priesthood worked with the Polish Resistance and is credited by B'nai B'rith for saving the lives of several Polish Jews from the Nazis. He then continued fighting when the Communists supplanted the Nazis, and is now remembered along with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as part of the coalition of Western leaders who finally brought the Soviet Union to its knees and ended the Cold War.
  • Another Pope to fall in that category was Pope Julius II, known as "The Warrior Pope" who actually lead his troops in the battlefield, masterminded battles and sieges, and wore armor. When Michelangelo was preparing to paint his picture, he said Julius needed to hold something in his hand, like a book for instance. Julius answered:
  Julius II: Nay, give me a sword, for I am a warrior, not a scholar.
  • To a lesser extent, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (better known as the current Pope Francis) was a bar bouncer in Buenos Aires before becoming a Jesuit priest.
• Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, the "Scarlet Pimpernel" of the Vatican, ran a resistance network that helped some 6,500 Jews and Allied service personnel evade capture in Fascist Italy.
• Father De Klerk, Missionary to the Solomons who remained behind when Westerners were evacuated to be with the Polynesian Christians he preached to, and then led them into battle to protect their homes.
• St. Óscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, staunch defender of human rights in El Salvador... assassinated by a government hitman in 1980 while celebrating mass.
• St. Moses the Black, while celebrated now as a pacifist, was an imposing figure with quite the checkered past. Once, as a monk, he was attacked by four bandits whom he subdued and dragged to the church, where they instantly converted.
• In Italy, a man in a church who "claimed to hear voices" suddenly gouged his own eyes in front of the whole church. Thankfully, paramedics arrived quickly. Although many of the congregation left out of horror, the priest continued mass for those remaining.
• St. Nicholas of Myra (yes, that Saint Nicholas) supposedly got into a fight with the heretic Arius that ended when Nicholas clobbered Arius in the face, to the shock of the rest of the Council of Nicaea. While the story is likely somewhat apocryphal, forensic evidence shows that Nicholas did have a healed fracture in his cheekbone. This may also make him the original Badass Santa!
• When the King of Naples was overthrown by a French-inspired Jacobin faction in 1799, he fled to the safety of Palermo. Meanwhile, his advisor Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo landed at La Cortona with just eight companions and a royalist flag, and no guns or money. Within a month, Ruffo had raised an army of 17,000 men, largely peasants (known as the Sanfedisti), and waged a surprisingly effective campaign against the Parthenopaean Republic, retaking the city of Naples itself within a few months (with some assistance from a British fleet commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson). There are a number of paintings of Cardinal Ruffo wearing what appears to be a military uniform as opposed to his cardinal's vestments, leading the Sanfedisti into battle. By all accounts, his army also contained a fair number of clergymen.
• Because of difficult and unaccessible parishes, Norway had a good lot of Badass Preachers over the years:
  • Christian Kjeldstrup, who singlehandedly threw a bully through a door, during the wedding of said bully.
  • Peder Bjørnson, who had to take a parish nobody dared to handle because of The Wild West mentality there. Bjørnson solved the problem when he manhandled the strongest man in the village and threw him down a staircase. Nobody messed with him again.
  • When Kjeldstrup and Bjørnson were students, there was a brawl among the theology students resulting in the three strongest successively throwing each other out: Kjeldstrup threw out Henrik Wergeland, and was in turn thrown out by Bjørnson.
  • Petter Dass, doubling as a memetic badass, for having a harsh parish on the coast of northern Norway, and writing hymns still in use. Constantly out sailing to reach his fellow men. He was said to have whipped the devil`s ass and rode on his back all the way to Copenhagen Christmas morning.
• Mister Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister who basically singlehandedly pioneered educational television out of concern that existing programming would rot brains. Mister Rogers once spoke up against the US Senate's threat to cut funding for public television, and in six minutes of quietly explaining his show, persuaded them to double it instead. His show, meanwhile, approached children on a level that demonstrated and encouraged integrity and respect, as well as curiosity and imagination, and was known to deal with themes such as divorce, violence, and even death (Rogers refused to employ a Replacement Goldfish when his died, and he had a special episode after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy to explain the situation to children).
• During the Carlists wars, some Navarran villages organized themselves in army led by their Vicar.
• Reggie White was an ordained Baptist minister. He was also one of the most ferocious and feared defensive lineman in his 15-year NFL career during the 1980s and 1990s (and is widely regarded as one of the best defensive linemen of all time), earning him the nickname "The Minister of Defense."
• Speaking of the NFL, Nick Foles, who quarterbacked the Philadelphia Eagles to victory in Super Bowl LII (2017 season, 2018 game), is on his way to becoming this trope. He's currently studying for the ministry.
• Johan Lundby is a Church of Sweden pastor, who primarily works with the LGBTQ community. He is also a two-time world champion Military Sabre fencer and holds outdoor sparring sessions once a week all year. In Sweden. He also carved a fish symbol into his own chest with a knife because getting tattoos of Christian symbols is for wimps.
• Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was more or less thrust into this role. Essentially run out of his home for preaching against the patron gods of his hometown of Mecca, he led his followers to the city of Yathrib (today's Medina), negotiated a peace treaty so that they could start a new life there, and eventually converted the entire city. He then raised an army from practically nothing once his enemies in Mecca could no longer tolerate the spread of his religion, leading them in battle himself. Despite being outnumbered and out-gunned, defeated them and conquered the city.
• Fr. José Reyes Vega was a general who fought and died in the Cristero War against the Calles Regime in Mexico in the 1920s. He took up arms among rebels in response to the socialist revolutionary government's pogrom of religious persecution - vandalism, theft, mass arrests, and killing priests by summary execution or outright assassination. He led his army to victory in the Battle of Tepatitlán at the cost of his own life.
• Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko was a Catholic priest in Communist Poland, who became a staunch ally of Lech Walesa's Solidarity trade union. As such he took part of the strikes of 1981, used his sermons to protest against the Communist goverment, and stood his ground despite all the intimidation tactics used by the Secret Police. He only "stopped" when said Police kidnapped, tortured and killed him in October of 1984.
• Charles J. Watters, Chaplain (Major) U.S. Army Was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery exhibited while rescuing wounded men in the Vietnam War, specifically the Battle of Dak To.
• Mychal Judge, O.F.M. a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest who served as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. He died in the line of duty — the first certified fatality of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 - being killed by falling debris from the collapsing World Trade Center's South Tower, which he had entered it to administer aid to the rescuers, injured, and dead. Prior to that, he had been a fearless missionary, ministering to New York's homeless, drug addicts, and AIDS patients at a time when they were viewed with derision by the Church and society at large.
• Francis L. Sampson Major General U.S. Army Catholic Priest who served as regimental chaplain for the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division and parachuted into France with them on D-Day and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in France aiding the wounded. He was captured by German forces during the Battle of the Bulge. His camp was liberated by Russian forces 4 months later. He went on to serve as Chaplain in the Korean War and was eventually promoted to Chief of Chaplains and served in Vietnam. After his retirement he went on to be the President of the USO.
• Said Nursi was a Kurdish preacher in the Ottoman Empire, and the author of one of the most comprehensive commentaries on the Qu'ran in existence. He was not only a theologian, but also a scientist, and said to have had a memory so exceptional that he could recall the exact page and paragraph of any sentence he studied just once. He became famous for his open defiance of the Ottoman government, which felt threatened by his push for education reforms and religious freedom. He also fought in WWI, during which he was captured and interned in a Siberian POW camp, but broke out and made his way back to Istanbul. On foot.
• Father Joseph O'Callahan, Jesuit priest and a United States Navy chaplain. He was awarded the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions during and after an attack on the aircraft carrier aboard which he was serving, the USS Franklin (CV-13). USS Franklin had been hit by two bombs by a Japanese bomber in 1945, as was furiously in fire. His prompt actions, organizing parties to fight fires and throw ammunition overboard, saved lives of more than 700 men on the hangar deck and lower decks. The actions of the skipper on the ship, Captain Leslie E. Gehres, fit better on another trope.
• Branse Burbridge, the highest scoring RAF night fighter pilot in WWII. He had a fellow theologian as his radar operator onboard his Mosquito, and he became an ordained priest after WWII. He considered shooting down three V1 flying bombs being his most worthy deed in WWII.
• St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort was a French priest and mystic who is extremely influential in the Catholic Church; no less than seven popes and three religious orders were shaped by his spirituality. He was also hell-on-wheels in a fight. Most famously, he put an end to a bar brawl that was disturbing one of his sermons by beating the tar out of the offenders. They were so impressed by his toughness that they followed him back to the church and listened as he finished his sermon.
• Muhammad Ali, in addition to being a championship boxer, was also a member of the paramilitary arm of the Nation of Islam, the Fruit of Islam, which had preaching responsibilities in addition to security. In the mid-1970s, he left the NOI for mainstream Islam. When he wasn't boxing, he would also sometimes go on preaching tours to share his vision of Islam with audiences. He once said that his goal was to be the "Muslim Billy Graham" when he retired from boxing, but unfortunately his development of Parkinson's Disease prevented that dream from becoming a reality.
• Lawrence of Brindisi was an Roman Catholic priest that served as battle chaplain for the Holy Roman Empire and lead an army marching on front, armed only with a crucifix.
• Father Carlos Mugica was a Guerrilla from "Montoneros" in Argentina.
• This minister at a church in Nashville.
• A man armed with two handguns burst into a church luncheon in Laguna Woods, California, killing one and wounding four. When he stopped to reload, the pastor bashed him with a chair and other members of the congregation jumped on him and tied him up with an extension cord, preventing further victims.
• Endicott Peabody, an Episcopal priest in The Wild West who never lost a boxing match.

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