Hot for Preacher

"Oh God, I fancy a priest."

Maya: ...I just wanted to ask what are you doing later, and do you like oatmeal draft lattes? 'Cause I do.
Father Brah: I'm a priest.
Maya: I'm a Capricorn! I think this could work.

— Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

A romance trope where a character is sexually attracted to or even in love with a member of the clergy (who will almost always be a Sexy Priest or a Naughty Nun to justify the character's affections in the eyes of the audience). May also occur when both partners are members of the clergy (a priest and a nun, for instance).

Truth in Television, and justifiably common when you consider that not all religions demand vows of celibacy. Anglican and Protestant clergy, for example, are free to marry, which was one of the controversial changes in the Reformation. Moreover, married men have always been allowed to become priests (but not bishops) in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, although priests are not permitted to get married after ordination (although there are enough loopholes in certain branches of these churches where this prohibition has less weight).

Despite the common misconception, a Vow of Celibacy was not always required in the Roman Catholic Church, either. For its first thousand years it was legal under church law for anyone from a local priest to the pope himself to marry and have children, though how acceptable it was is considered to be varied. It was particularly common for a man seeking to join the priesthood to delay ordination until he got married, since it was usually seen as acceptable for a married man to become a parish priest (as in the Orthodox churches to this day). The practice came to an end when the Church began discovering that priests were bequeathing land to their children that belonged to the Church, not the priest—and, more annoying to the Church hierarchy, trying to bequeath their position as priest (interfering with the authority of the Pope and the bishops to make hiring decisions). Even today, most priests required by their order or diocese to be celibate (to not marry). Extramarital sex is still a sin, certainly, but like any other sin, it can be forgiven through the Sacrament of Reconciliation (aka Confession). This does not, however, shield the priest or the Church from scandal.

Priestly celibacy does, in fact, have a basis in the New Testament. Says St. Paul:

"I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. . . . So that he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better" (1 Cor. 7:32-35, 38).

In other words, Catholic priests are celibate primarily so that they can be free to focus on their ministry.

Within the Catholic Church, there are exceptions for already married Protestant priests who convert to Catholicism. Father Dwight Longenecker, an ordained Anglican priest who converted, is one such exception.

In the Victorian era a clergyman was actually considered top-notch husband material because he had a guaranteed income, social status, and probably wasn't going to spend his time fooling around with the housemaid (hopefully). On the other hand, a curate was at the very bottom of the ecclesiastical ladder, and was generally not nearly as well paid as his superiors.

In fiction, however, this trope will typically be played for drama with Catholic priests or nuns, for an added element of Forbidden Fruit to it. When a work is simply about desire for, say, a Protestant minister, the conflict around this trope tends to be lessened, though there's still plenty of dramatic potential if either or both parties are tempted to carry on a premarital or extramarital affair.

Cases where a celibate clergy member eventually reciprocates the feeling may or may not follow, though whether or not they will abandon their chastity vows, or entire vocation, to be with their beloved varies a lot.

Not related to Get Thee to a Nunnery, though the above trope may have played a part in the latter's origins. People who feel this way will often say "I'm Going to Hell for This."

Compare Nun Too Holy. Disturbingly inverted in the figure of the Pedophile Priest. May violate a Vow of Celibacy.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Asta from Black Clover is infatuated with Sister Lily, wanting to marry her despite her being a nun, a good deal older than him, and having raised him. He refuses to take no for an answer despite however many times she rejects him.
• The basis of Chrono Crusade: this is the story of a Battle Couple made of a nun named Rosette and a demon named Chrono. In the anime, Rosette is also harrassed by Big Bad Aion who even plants two Forceful Kisses on the poor girl.
• Cross Marian of D.Gray-Man. May double as Badass Preacher. There have been numerous references to him being a Priest. In addition to the mangaka, Hoshino Katsura, drawing him in priest robes◊ on the covers of one of her fanbooks. However, he is not a stranger to the pleasures of women. One of his hobbies being to visit the red-light districts. We get to know one of his lovers, Anita, who is a prostitute. She seems to have strong feelings for Cross, and we hear that her mother was also in love with him.
• Maria†Holic plays with this trope when Father Kanae thinks this with Kanako but he himself is after Mariya.
• Very... creepily used with Father Garai and Michio Yuki from MW.
• Eventually happens in One Pound Gospel, with Kosaku falling for Sister Angela.
• Spoofed in Sailor Moon Super S alongside Interspecies Romance, when Artemis the cat seems to have a crush on a beautiful nun named Sister Maria. He was mostly fantasizing about cat marriage in a Catolic church... in front of one where Sister Maria volunteers. And then she's captured by a member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad...
• In Trigun, Huge Schoolgirl Milly is attracted to Wolfwood, the resident Badass Preacher. In the anime they even spend a night together and do it... right before he's killed.

Comic Books

• Even though they were never together while he headed a church, Tulip's attraction to Jesse Custer in Preacher would definitely qualify.

Comic Strips

• There was a storyline in the newspaper comic 9 Chickweed Lane about a priest and a nun who fell for one another. They did not pursue the romance at the time, but both left the church soon afterwards, and they eventually got married.

Fan Works

• In Tithing Love, the new farmer Claire has a romance with the local priest, Father Carter.
• Vow of Nudity: While still part of her clan, Fiora engaged in a lengthy affair with her tribe's matriarch despite such a thing being sacrilege on both their parts.

Film — Live-Action

• Autopsy (1975): As they investigate the murder of his sister together, pathologist Simona finds her long-repressed sexuality turning towards troubled Father Lenox.
• Chilean movie Bienvenida Casandra ("Welcome here, Casandra!") is about the aforementioned Casandra, the local Naïve Newcomer, falling for the young priest of the village she's just arrived.
• The Blood on Satan's Claw (aka The Devil's Skin) has a horror example. The Satan worshipping school girl tries to seduce the town preacher, going so far as to strip for him. He does not give in.
• The Crime Of Father Amaro, inspired by a Portuguese novel of the same name. With Gael Garcia Bernal as the Sexy Priest who has a relationship with the local Naïve Everygirl.
• In the film Emily, Emily Bronte and the handsome new curate begin a passionate affair, cultivated by him acting as her French tutor.
• The Getting of Wisdom: During her second year of boarding school, Laura convinces the other girls that she is in a relationship with the school's minister Rev. Shepherd. While some of them fall for it, others are suspicious, believing that the Reverend, who is already married, would never put his reputation on the line by carrying out an affair with a teenage student. Once the truth is revealed, the girls chew out Laura for besmirching his good name by spreading such rumours.
• Keeping the Faith involves a Love Triangle between a Rabbi, a Catholic priest and their childhood friend.
• In Love Exposure, a woman falls for a Catholic priest.
• The North Avenue Irregulars has housewife Mrs. Gossin inviting Rev. Hill inside for some "personal counseling". She's visibly disappointed when he declines to enter.
• Parson Sue (1912). After the titular cleric arrives in a small western town, the local young men are suddenly keen to attend church.
• Pavilion of Women, an adaptation of the Pearl S. Buck novel of the same name. Though there's a romantic attraction between Madame Wu and Father Andre in the book, the film makes it much more explicit and unlike the novel, has the couple act on their feelings for each other.
• The early '70s film Pieces Of Dreams involves an affair between a priest and a divorced social worker.
• In Priest, Robert Carlyle (playing Graham) has the hots for Linus Roache (Father Greg). It's reciprocal.
• Quills has some UST between Madeleine and the Abbé du Coulmier.
• Simon Birch: Reverend Russell slept with Joe's mother, which resulted in Joe.
• The Sound of Music, where the Captain falls for the nun postulant whom he's hired as his nanny.
• One of the fake trailers at the beginning of Tropic Thunder was a parody of Oscar Bait films that involved two monks being sexually attracted to each other.
• The plot of Ingmar Bergman's 1963 film Winter Light follows the story of a struggling Lutheran pastor in rural Sweden and his growing frustration with the emotionally unstable young schoolmarm who is infatuated with him. A similar subplot takes place in First Reformed, which is a partial remake of the former.

Literature

• In Angels & Demons, Dan Brown has in its backstory a priest and nun who fall in love, but refuse to cast aside their vows of celibacy, but also refuse to let that stop them from reproducing. She artificially inseminates herself with his seed (which is against Church doctrine at time of writing (2014) but isn't a breaking of a vow), becomes pregnant, and is, of course, forced out of the nunhood. He becomes The Pope.
• In The Book of Eve, the convent warden Arcangela has a fascination with the preacher Abramo which sits uncomfortably between lust and religious fervor. Towards the end of the book, he calls her out for desiring him.
• In The Comfortable Courtesan, all of Clorinda's female servants are at least somewhat appreciative of the young and handsome Methodist lay preacher Elisha Roberts. Since there's no religious objection to it, there's a happy ending when he marries Seraphine.
• In Émile Zola's book La Conquête de Plassans (The Conquest of Plassans), housewife Marthe's becomes more and more devout over the course of the story, as well as enamoured with her lodger, cleric Abbé Faujas. This is not reciprocated though and, being a Zola novel, ends badly for everybody involved.
• This is the premise of the 19th-century Portuguese novel O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Crime of Father Amaro"), where it ends in tragedy.
• In Gabriel García Márquez's Del Amor Y Otros Demonios (Of love and other demons), a promising and ambitious priest named Father Cayetano Delaura is tasked with taking care of Sierva Maria, a mix of Lonely Rich Kid and Creepy Child who's suspected of being under Demonic Possession. Delaura is also the first person ever to treat the badly neglected girl as a human being, and they end up attracted to each other. But not only Sierva Marìa is regarded as possessed and Delaura is a very promising member of his order, but she is as much 12 years old and he's in his 30's. It's played for both squick and drama and ends in massive tragedy..
• In The Exorcist, Father Karras is concerned that Chris MacNeil may view him as forbidden fruit and develop (or have already developed) an attraction for him. Whether this is accurate, baseless speculation, or even projection on his part is not clearly established, since before long they have far worse things to worry about.
• In the Roald Dahl short story "Georgie Porgie", a vicar is wanted by several women in his church who use a garden party to proposition him. He has issues, and this pushes him over the edge.
• In The God of Small Things, Baby Kochamma fell in love with an Irish missionary when she was younger.
• In In This House of Brede, Larry Bannerman and Sister Cecily. They're in love, but she loves God more. He eventually marries her cousin Jean.
• Aliena in The Pillars of the Earth is in love with Jack, who becomes a monk largely because he thinks she isn't.
• A Prayer for Owen Meany: Tabitha slept with Rev. Merrill, which resulted in Johnny.
• Father Amadi from Purple Hibiscus is the main character's first crush. She's fifteen, and he's at least in his twenties, but he never leads her on romantically.
• In Record of Lodoss War, the Lodoss cults have no objections to their priests/priestesses marrying and raising families. Therefore, you have some examples of this:
  • Princess Fianna of Valis falls for Etoh, a cute young priest of Falis and Parn's best friend. They get married, and become King and Queen of Valis.
  • Neese, a high-ranked priestess of Marpha, is a widow with a daughter named Laylea who is also a priestess, meaning that her husband swore by the trope in the past.
  • After being released of Karla the Grey Witch's Grand Theft Me, Laylea herself falls for Parn's Big Brother Mentor Slayn, who returns her feelings; they get Happily Married and then have Little Neese, who becomes a main character in the second half of the TV series because she's also the Apocalypse Maiden.
  • Little Neese herself seems to have kind-of a crush on Spark, The Hero.
• In The Sinner, the third Rizzoli & Isles novel, Dr. Maura Isles discovers that one of the two nuns murdered at a local church recently gave birth and wonders if this trope is being played out, as the priest is ostensibly the only one who could be the father (he isn't). She then plays this trope out herself when a mutual attraction develops and they conduct an affair over the next several books before finally ending when she's forced to admit that as much as he loves her, he isn't willing to leave the priesthood for her.
• An example of Hot For Preacher where the attraction for a Puritan minister is frowned upon for leading not to marriage but to adultery (complete with a bastard child) can be found in The Scarlet Letter.
• Discussed in A Song of Ice and Fire novel A Feast For Crows. When Brienne first starts traveling with Septon Meribald, (a wandering priest who travels to some of the poorest and most remote villages in the kingdom to preach and take confession) he relates how, as a young man, he would take advantage of the ignorance and isolation of the girls in some of these villages to get them to sleep with him.
  Even holy septons can be sinners, and my flesh was as weak as could be. I was young and full of sap, and the girls... a septon can seem as gallant as a prince if he is the only man you know who has ever been more than a mile from your village.
• In the first Spaceforce (2012) book, compulsive womaniser Jay is first seduced as a teenage boy by the priestess of his local temple.
• In The Sparrow, we have Father Emilio Sandoz who is chaste, charming, funny, intelligent, Roman Catholic priest, and apparently not bad to look at. The Catholic schoolgirls call him Father What-a-waste, and a main character grows to love him.
• The subplot of a Danielle Steel novel in which a young postulate and priest fall in love. He hangs himself when they're found out and she's banished from the church.
• Pretty much the plot of The Thorn Birds.
• In The Three Musketeers, Milady is a nun who has seduced a monk and left the convent, only to abandon the monk to marry Athos, only to abandon him to marry Lord de Winter, whom she poisons. She is not a nice lady.
• In The Traitor Son Cycle, the Red Knight falls for a nun, and the two have three books of UST before ultimately deciding that they're better off as friends.
• Sissy from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn once tried to seduce her priest, since she didn't believe in celibacy.
• In Trinity Blood, two different nuns show clear romantic feelings for the lead character, who's a Catholic priest. And a frighteningly powerful super-vampire, but that's not important to this trope. It's never treated as any kind of "forbidden fruit" situation, though, because it takes place in a distant future where the Catholic Church no longer requires clerical celibacy.
• In the Vatican Secret Archives series by Gary McAvoy (think a historical religious thriller series along the lines of Dan Brown, only better), protagonist Father Michael Dominic and investigative journalist Hana Sinclair fall deeply in love and acknowledge it (and share one very thrilling but very forbidden kiss in a moment of weakness), but, due to Michael's devotion to his calling, they can't pursue any kind of romantic relationship until the Pope changes the rules to allow Roman Catholic priests to marry.
• Medicine cats are the spiritual leaders in Warrior Cats. They're barred from taking mates, but almost every one has either feelings for a cat or outright has an affair. Examples include Firepaw's Precocious Crush on Spottedleaf and Leafpool's relationship with Crowfeather.

Live-Action TV

• Amen. Thelma Frye falls in Love at First Sight with the handsome Reverend Gregory and she isn't the only woman to be attracted to him over the show's tenure. Later, her father falls in love with with a female associate pastor.
• Angel's twisted obsession with Drusilla stems from the fact that she is a "saint", as he calls it. She wants nothing more than to become a nun. Guess how that one turned out...
• Assumpta and Father Peter in Ballykissangel. Parodied in the Father Ted Christmas Episode in a Cold Open daydream sequence, with Ted in Peter's place.
• This would often be a running gag on The Benny Hill Show.
• A case of Truth in Television in The Borgias- both Rodrigo and Cesare experience this, though Cesare's lover in series one leaves him for the convent after he murders her husband.
• Sister Paul's POV episode in Brides of Christ deals with her falling for Father Jack, a priest she meets at a cousin's wedding. They both decide to abandon their vocations and attempt a romantic relationship, but it ultimately doesn't work out, and she decides to return to the convent.
• Call the Midwife: 2 clergy/religious, 3 examples:
  • Dr Patrick Turner, the widowed doctor who works with Nonnatus House, falls head over heels for the kindest, sweetest, most good-hearted character in the entire cast, and she falls just as desperately in love with him. Unfortunately for them both, that character is devoted nun Sister Bernadette. Her struggle to choose between her vows and the man she loves is a major subplot of the second series. After months of struggle and heartache, she leaves the convent to be with him. Needless to say, when the film version of The Sound of Music hits theaters in 1965, Patrick and Shelagh — now long since Happily Married — lampshade the similarities for all they are worth.
    Patrick: So much of that film chimed with me.... Did it with you?
    Shelagh: The postulant giving it all up for the man she loves — will always love? [smile] I'm hardly Maria von Trapp. I'd struggle to hit a top C.
    Patrick: I'm hardly a brooding sea captain with seven children.
    Shelagh: But I feel as if our love is as solid as theirs — even if we don't sing about it.
    Patrick: I remember when you used to sing in chapel. There was one time I'll never forget.... I'd had a particularly rotten day — a stillbirth in Ontario Buildings. I had to return some paperwork to Nonnatus House, and when I was leaving I heard Compline. I followed the sound, found myself outside the chapel, listening through the open door. [There was] such comfort in the beauty of it — and your voice touched my soul. It was like everyone else's melted away and it was just you.
    Shelagh: [obviously touched] Oh, Patrick.
  • Shelagh's colleague, Nurse Trixie Franklin, is not a nun, and she falls pretty quickly for the handsome and virtuous but poor young curate Tom Hereward. Being as Hereward is Anglican, he is free to marry, and proposes to Trixie after a few months of dating (as was typical in the late 1950s-early 60s). But it turns out that his commitment to working in deprived areas was in conflict with her vision of a safe and comfortable for them and their future children, so they called it off.
  • A little later, Nurse Barbara Gilbert falls for Rev. Hereward (causing a little tension with Trixie at first). Being the daughter of a clergyman who—like Tom—felt called to serve in deprived areas, she was more compatible and ultimately married him.
• City on a Hill: Jenny develops a mutual attraction to Father Doyle, and they have sex.
• A Deadly Women segment profiled a nun who murdered a fellow sister, insanely jealous and disapproving of her relationship with the priest, feeling that she was an evil woman who was corrupting him.
• In one episode of Derry Girls, Erin, Michelle, Orla, and even James (but not Clare) are enamored by handsome young Fr. Peter, who is called upon to verify their claim that they witnessed a statue of Mary weep. (There was no miracle; the tears were actually dog piss.)
• In Diablero, Ventura is an attractive man, and Elvis' nieces often lustfully call him padrecito (a diminuitive of padre, "father"). He then begins a slow-burn romance with Nancy over the course of the first season.
• Inverted on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, when it's the local minister who becomes attracted to Mike while they're trying to find homes for orphans.
• Subverted in an episode of Father Ted, where Ted believes an attractive female novelist visiting Craggy Island has developed feelings for him. Ted all but rushes through a mass and blows off a visiting group of nuns when she invites him over to her place, only for her to reveal that she's thinking about becoming a nun, and wants to get his advice on vocations.
• When the titular character of Fleabag falls for a Nice Guy for once, he happens to be a Catholic priest.
• Also inverted on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, when a minister confesses his love for Vivian after they spend several weeks working together on a project for the church.
• An episode of In the Heat of the Night has a local minister being murdered. It turns out he was having affairs with several local women (for added bonus, his secretary was madly in love with him also, though it never went anywhere) and his killer was the angry father of one of them.
• On Keeping Up Appearances, the Vicar is pursued by so many of the women in the parish—unsuccessfully, as he is devoted to his wife—that she says that she liked his old ministry better. (He had previously been chaplain at a men's prison.)
• A mild case in Kim's Convenience, when a beautiful female pastor called Nina Gomez joins the local church Mr. and Mrs. Kim regularly attend. Mr. Kim takes an instant attraction to her and is very enthusiastic around her (in contrast to the main priest Pastor Choi and church in general), going as far as to let her get things from his store for free. The trope wears off after her debut episode, with the two remaining amicable but Mr. Kim otherwise no longer showing any interest in her.
• On Kung Fu (1972) Caine was the object of this a time or two.
• Happens, sort of, in an episode of Little House on the Prairie. The old vicar, Rev Alden, is hit on by an equally old congregant. One wouldn't exactly call this "Hot" for preacher, but it counts. They decide to marry, prompting Harriet to object, saying the old preacher should not marry. We find she was once engaged to a man who left her for the ministry.
• In The Last Don II, Mafia Princess Rose Marie has a love affair with her parish priest (played by Jason Isaacs). It does not end well for him.
• In the Lifetime Movie of the Week "Sins And Seduction", a man becomes obsessed with the new minister at his church and true to form, begins stalking and terrorizing her.
• Loving. Shana for Jim. Ends tragically, of course—he's killed after leaving the priesthood for her, leaving her pregnant with their son.
  • Then on the Spin-Off The City, Zoe creates a fake version of this after reading The Thorn Birds, because she wants to discourage the affections of the man she really loves, having just discovered that they might be brother and sister. ^note  It turns out that they aren't. She admits to her ruse and they leap into bed.
• An episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show has a handsome priest who is thinking of giving up the priesthood; Mary mistakenly thinks it's because of her.
• On M*A*S*H, Father Mulcahy had this happen when he helped one of the nurses study to become a doctor.
• In an episode of Once Upon a Time, Leroy develops a crush on Sister Astrid, a nun. It's revealed that Leroy is actually Grumpy Dwarf and Astrid is a fairy who he had a brief relationship with before their callings pulled them apart. Dwarfs and fairies are both One Gender Races who are expected to be Celibate Heroes and focus exclusively on mining or granting wishes respectively.
• One Life to Live:
  • Shortly after being introduced, promiscuous troublemaker Marty Saybrooke repeatedly tried to seduce Andrew Carpenter, the local minister. When he rebuffed her advances, she sought revenge by falsely accusing him of molesting a young boy. A few years later, after Marty's Rape Portrayed as Redemption, her feelings resurfaced. This time, Andrew reciprocated and the two had to legitimately struggle to keep their feelings in check, as Andrew was now Happily Married.
    • This would apply to Andrew's girlfriend—with who he had premarital sex, a major taboo, given his occupation—and eventual wife Cassie also. And to Tea Delgado, whom he had a fling with after his marriage ended. Problem is, she was married herself.
  • It must run in the family — when Andrew's cousin Maggie came to town, it was immediately obvious that she was slated to be a new love interest for the recently widowed Max Holden, given that they instantly took a dislike to each other. Problem is, Maggie was a postulate who was due to take her final vows any day now. She gave it up to be with Max, but left town to resume her studies when the relationship fell apart.
  • And it must run in Max himself, whose ex-wife Gabrielle fled to a convent because she was so terrified of her feelings for him. Him tracking her down and them going at it on the grounds of the rectory changed her mind.
  • Maybe it's just something in the Llanview water—roughly a decade after the Andrew/Marty storyline, Joey Buchanan returned to town as a new seminary graduate under Andrew's tutelage. He very quickly fell for the married Jen Rappaport, jeopardizing his career.
• Early episodes of Soap had Corinne in love with Father Tim. He eventually left the priesthood to marry her. Then they had a demon baby; after it was exorcised it was Put On A Perambulator.
• Brazilian Soap Opera Mulheres Apaixonadas ('Passionate Women') had a subplot where a woman fell in love with a Catholic priest. Eventually she got him to leave the clergy and marry her.
• The Protestant version happens on Reba. Several female members of the cast are infatuated with the congregation's new minister, including Barbara Jean who very inappropriately sends him a copy of The Thorn Birds. He ends up asking Reba for a date.
• Samantha in Sex and the City lusted over a Sexy Priest in one episode but her interest wasn't reciprocated.
• In The Sopranos, the sexual tension between Carmela Soprano and Father Intintola is a plot point.
• Sunset Beach: Antonio and Gabriella, further complicated by the fact that she's engaged to his brother.
• Frequently in The Vicar of Dibley, and in both directions. Naturally though, the guys who are interested in Geraldine are nothing like the guys she's interested in herself.
• In the Without a Trace episode "Revelations", as the team searches for a missing priest, they learn that he'd recently discovered that a colleague was having an affair with a parishioner and had threatened to expose him. However, this had nothing to do with why he'd vanished.

Music

• There is also an old Flemish folk song where the singer meets a (poor) postulant. When her parents die she becomes one of the richest people in the land, but when he comes for her she has already taken her vows and will not go with him. Different versions of this song have different endings — in one, eventually she does go with him; in another, he kills himself and she has a house built on top of his grave to become a recluse.
• A medieval cantiga (monophonic song) from Portugal tells the story of a man who went after an Abbess... to ask her to prepare him for his wedding night.
• "Body and Soul" by Tori Amos, where the POV is of the singer seducing a priest.
• "Dont Mess With The Missionary Man", a song by Eurythmics.
• "She is my Sin", by Nightwish is told from the perspective of a priest who falls in love with one of his flock.
• "Goin' Down" by The Pretty Reckless is a song about a 16-year-old girl seducing a priest in a confessional, in an attempt to get into heaven after killing her boyfriend.
• The Dutch song "De Nozem en de Non" (The Punk and the Nun) by Cornelis Vreeswijk is the (humorous) story of how the punk and the nun fell in love and are eventually separated by the police for walking on the grass.

Theater

• In Euripides' Hippolytus, the eponymous hero is a devotee of Artemis and has dedicated his virginity to her, when his stepmother Phaedra falls in love with him. All ends in tears.
• In accordance with The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples, the Duke in Measure for Measure falls in love with Isabel, a postulant for the Poor Clares. (This has quite unnecessarily scandalized some commentators.)
• It used to be very common in the Victorian era (generally in the form of falling in love with the poor but virtuous and handsome young curate), so much so that it was a convention of novels and plays mocked by W. S. Gilbert in two separate works: "The Rival Curates" (which eventually got turned into Patience and featured rival poets instead) and The Sorceror (in which the much older vicar, Dr. Daly, is adored by young Constance).

Video Games

• In Bravely Default, Tiz Arrior develops a crush on Agnés Oblige, who, as the Wind Vestal, is a major religious figure in the faith of the Crystals.
• Dragon Quest V: Prince Harry develops a crush on Maria right when she takes her vows.
• In Fallout 3 there is a minor sidequest in Rivet City where a woman has eyes for the local priest's apprentice and asks for your help. Solutions include convincing him yourself, telling his boss that he's already done the nasty and getting him thrown out, and getting the woman some royal ant jelly (which temporarily gives a large boost to charisma at the cost of intelligence) so he actually will break his vows. If you're successful you can attend their ceremony.
• Happens more than once in Fire Emblem (sometimes when certain characters support to A level) with a Monk, a Cleric or a Priest. Some cases include:
  • Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light and Mystery of the Emblem: Lena and Julian are love interests. Not to mention she was supposed to marry Prince Michalis, but decided to run away... Also, Marth's older sister Elice is a Priest and is implied to marry her childhood friend Merric.
  • Genealogy of the Holy War: anyone who marries either the Cleric/High Priest Adean or the Bishop Claude in Gen 1, and later whoever falls for the Cleric/High Priest Lana (Adean's daughter) or the Priest/Bishop Corple (Sylvia's son);
  • Blazing Blade: the Cleric Serra and either Oswin, Matthew or Erk; for some, the Monk Lucius and Raven. If Serra will end up lampshading the trope if she marries Oswin.
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones: the monk Artur and Lute, the cleric Natasha and either Seth or Joshua.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening: Lissa (Cleric), Libra (War Monk aka a promoted Priest), and any character reclassed into Priest or Cleric. Subverted with the Priest Brady, who leaves the clergy in his endings to become a musician instead.
  • Fire Emblem Fates: Sakura (Shrine Maiden, the Hoshidan equivalent of Cleric), Azama (Monk, the Hoshidan equivalent of Priest), Azama's daughter Mitama (Shrine Maiden who can be mothered by Sakura), and any character reclassed into Shrine Maiden or Monk.
• One of the possible romance options in Dragon Age II is with Sebastian, a celibate Sexy Priest.
• In Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns, one of the bachelorettes is a nun named Alissa. You can marry her but, due to her vows to the Harvest Goddess, you can't have kids with her.
• Telma appears to feel this way towards Renado in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, though it's Played for Laughs (Telma owns a bar, after all).
• One of the bachelorettes in Rune Factory Frontier is a sister-in-training Lara.

Western Animation

• ThunderCats (2011) has Tygra falling for Cheetara, a Cleric, which in this setting is a warrior dedicated to guarding the crown. Cheetara also she likes Tygra back.

Real Life

• In the Roman Catholic Church, it is forbidden for a priest to absolve a sexual sin in the confessional if he was involved in the act in question. So you cannot have sex with a priest and then had said priest-boyfriend absolve you for it.
• A notable case (and an inversion) is that of Renaissance painter Fra Filippo Lippi, who was a friar but apparently had little inclination for chastity. He allegedly seduced a novice from the convent of S. Margherita of Prato and employed her as a model for his Madonnas.
• There was a brothel in medieval England that catered to customers with a Naughty Nuns fetish. None of the employees were actually nuns, but they wore the full costume.
• This trope led to the fall of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart during the late 1980s.
• In Chile, high-ranked lawyer Clara Szczaranski fell in love with a well-known Jesuit priest and uni professor named Renato Hevia. After quite the media circus due to the objections raised by the local Cath church, he left clergy and they got married.
• Father Cutie. Yes, that is his name. To elaborate, Cutie (a popular TV personality and up-and-coming Catholic priest in his diocese) fell in love with one of his parishioners, a single mother. Eventually, because of Cutie's visibility in the media, photos of them kissing on a beach were published in a tabloid. After some reflection, Cutie chose his girlfriend over the Catholic Church, and converted to the Episcopalian faith so he could marry her and continue working as a priest. They're still Happily Married and have two children together.
• Martin Luther and his wife Catherine were once a Monk and Nun until that whole Protestant business.
• Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury who played a leading role in the English Reformation, was married twice. His first marriage occurred before he became a priest (his wife died in childbirth), but the second took place after his ordination. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was in favour of allowing priests in the (then new) Church of England to marry! Wife number two, Margarete, was the niece of a leading German Protestant, and after her husband's consecration as Archbishop she is said to have hidden in a (presumably well-ventilated) chest or laundry hamper in order to sneak into Lambeth Palace to be with her husband, as — despite his arguments in favour of such a move — clerical celibacy was not abolished for C of E priests until after the death of Henry VIII. After Henry's death, their marriage was openly acknowledged.
• The Other Wiki has a list of sexually active popes. Yes, this is real.

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