The Catholic Church
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Senior Clergy
Korecki
Monsignor Matthew Korecki
Portrayed By: Boris McGiver
A monsignornote who oversees David's mission.
- The Alleged Boss: Shows up once or twice an episode to tell the trio what their case is and listen to their ideas but doesn't really direct them. He did have to approve Kristen's regular employment with them, though.
- Benevolent Boss: Overall seems understanding and amiable towards David and his crew.
- The Bus Came Back: He returns late in Season 2, with no more explanation given to his reappearance than his disappearance.
- Character Death: He's murdered by Leland in Season 3 while protecting Grace.
- Closet Gay: In Season 3, it's revealed that he and Father Ignatius are in love, but stay keep themselves assigned to far apart parishes to ensure they aren't tempted.
- Dying Declaration of Love: His last words are to beg David to tell Ignatius that he loves him.
- Put on a Bus: He disappears from the show without much of an explanation when Bishop Marx turns up and becomes the gang's church contact. He returns near the end of the second season, looking somewhat enthusiastic at David's celebration of becoming a priest.
Marx
Bishop Thomas Marx
Portrayed By: Peter Scolari
A Bishop reassigned to David's diocese when an exorcism by David and Father Amara is the subject of a lawsuit.
- Ambiguously Evil: He's just odd enough to make him seem a little creepy, and a little less than benevolent.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He disappears near the end of Season 2, with his job of overseeing of the assessors going back to Monsignor Korecki. This is because his actor passed away unexpectedly.
- Mr. Exposition: His job is essentially to exposit about the case-of-the-week for the team.
- Mysterious Employer: Could just be a buttoned-up personality, but if he has an agenda, he's kept it secret.
- Slave to PR: He's pretty unapologetically concerned about the public image of the church, and his first question when it comes to cases is usually to do with liability.
Ignatius
Father Frank Ignatius
Portrayed by: Wallace Shawn
A priest who takes part in an experiment regarding the weight of the soul while terminally ill. He later takes over Msgr. Korecki’s duties supervising the assessors.
- Benevolent Boss: He may be even friendlier toward the assessors than Korecki was.
- The Bus Came Back: He leaves the parish after his recovery in order to resist temptation with Msgr. Korecki. After Korecki is murdered he returns to take up his duties.
- Closet Gay: He and Korecki were mutually in love, which is why they kept to separate parishes.
- Moving Beyond Bereavement: Seems to be a factor in his working with the assessors.“People think they’re being helpful when they take work away from a mourner. They’re not. I need work more than anything now.”
- Unexplained Recovery: While he never actually died, he was so close to the end that it’s a shock when he recovers his health. David attributes the weight that leaves him, which they initially thought was his soul, to a demon that had formerly been oppressing him. As things tend to go on this show, it’s not confirmed either way.
Priests
Amara
Father Amara
Portrayed By: Clark Johnson
A New York priest and exorcist.
- Parental Substitute: Seems to be one for David. David's father is still alive, of course, but Father Amara is the one he turns to for advice specific to his priestly calling.
- Put on a Bus: Disappears from the series before the end of Season 1, due to a lawsuit concerning the aftermath of one of his exorcisms.
Kay
Father John Kay
Portrayed By: Dylan Baker
A New York priest and David's seminary teacher.
- Jerkass: He's a narrow-minded, domineering teacher who doesn't want his students to give their opinions.
Mulvehill
Father Mulvehill
Portrayed By: Brian Stokes Mitchell
Father Amara's replacement during Season 2.
- Forced into Evil: Leland blackmails him with his secret gambling debts to force him to fake his exorcism.
- Jerkass: He's not the nicest fellow, very much believing in the patriarchy and disrespecting religious beliefs that conflict with his own.
- The Gambling Addict: He was in recovery prior to the second season, but he relapses and badly when he discovers online poker. It gets so bad that he ends up in $40,000 in debt to a violent Loan Shark, and Leland uses the information to blackmail him into faking his three part exorcism.
- Iconic Item: His exorcism kit. He's very fond of it, and its weathered appearance does make him seem like quite the experienced exorcist. However, Sister Andrea reveals that this is partially for show, and that he uses sandpaper at night to weather it and make it more look more used, in order to give him the appearance of expertise.
- Put on a Bus: Due to gambling problems revealed by the assessors, he is sent to a "retreat" rather than embarrass the Church. He reappears briefly in "S is for Silence" to assist with an exorcism at the silent monastery, most likely because that's where his "retreat" happened to be.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He's not happy sharing exorcism duties with a sheikh in "F is for Fire", due to the spirit being a djinn (and thus from Islam rather than Christianity), but they make it work eventually... Or do they?
- Wound That Will Not Heal: He claims to have one, as his back will spontaneously start bleeding as if he has large gashes, when he says he has no wounds. However, crucially he never shows the team this, and David only sees the blood seeping through his clothes, and it's implied to perhaps just be injuries he got from his loan shark attacking him.
Nuns
Andrea
Sister Andrea
Portrayed By: Andrea Martin
A nun who befriends David.
- Almighty Janitor: For all intents and purposes she is a maid in the seminary, but is actually one the most powerful allies for the forces of good in the series. She's held back because of both sexism and her own sense of duty.
- Cool Old Lady: She's easily the coolest church member, being a snarky warrior of God with nerves of steel; unlike the other members of the church, she sees through Leland immediately and has zero patience for his antics.
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The Danza: She shares a first name with her actress. - Deadpan Snarker: Her default mode, as she doesn't suffer fools but her low status in the church means she can mostly express this through snark.
- Did Not Think This Through: She rejects helping Kurt write his book, dismissing him with a few Christian pamphlets. This sends him right into Leland's clutches.
- Mysterious Past: Leland is dumbfounded that he has never heard of her when they first meet, as she immediately sees through his Faux Affably Evil mask before he even speaks or she knows anything about him. Later, she tells David that she gave up the love of her life to be a nun, and later tells him the story of her first vision, but nothing else is known about her.
- Never Mess with Granny: Despite being in her older years, she's probably the most capable member of the church and isn't afraid to get her hands dirty.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Implied. She used to teach in a Catholic school, but now basically works as a maid in the seminary, with the implication being that her outspoken attitude got her demoted.
- Psychic Powers: Ambiguous, like the rest of the series. She frequently has visions of the supernatural, which she explains as the ability to see angels and demons in the real world, but tends to keep it quiet because she's nearly branded a heretic. She explains that the ability is shared by others to varying degrees based on their "goodness", and David is one of them, but since he isn't as good, he doesn't see demons anywhere near as often as her. However, alternatively, she might just be mentally ill and having religious-themed hallucinations.
The Entity
LaConte
Victor LaConte
Portrayed By: Brian d'Arcy James
A mysterious "friend of the Vatican", who oversees black ops missions on behalf of the church.
- Blasphemous Boast: He goes so far as to categorically claim that he knows "what God wants".
- The Chessmaster: He spends most of season 3 covertly negotiating with the Chinese government, to the point that they agree to both locate Grace within a Labor Camp and extradite her to America. He does this under the nose of the American Government.
- Creepy Good: He's a mysterious agent who likes to pop in to see David in his own bedroom, and gives off the air of government assassin. He's also part of the effort to eliminate the demonic houses, and seems to be doing pretty well.
- Genre Refugee: He's the Handler from an espionage thriller transplanted to an Urban Horror setting.
- The Handler: He recruits David to be a friend of the Vatican in Season 3, and takes on this role for him. He often appears to give David odd assignments at inopportune times.
- Insistent Terminology: No David, there is no such thing as "The Entity". There are only "friends of the Vatican".
- The Spook: He holds no official title within the Church, but all Church officials seem to defer to him. He may be an intelligence agent for the US Government assisting the Church, or he may be a high ranking member of the Church's own secret service.
- Would Hurt a Child: In season 3, he's determined to prevent Lexis from ascending to a demonic throne, and will eliminate her if there is no other option.
