THE DISILLUSIONED

Now that fictional Catholic priests have left forever the Bing Crosby era of hearty warbling and baseball, have come and gone in the decent O'Connor era, it appears that they are now being die-stamped by commercial writers for the anti-Establishment Revolution. Here is a non-blessed another. Father David Kealey entered the priesthood because he wanted to do something meaningful with his life (the writers pinch in a soupcon of G--d on occasion, but not too much). In spite of his love for Bonnie, with whom he had s--xual relations, David is ordained and placed in a gold-plated suburb which has a parochial school to match. Chafing at the political and social blind spots of his superiors, Father Kealey trespasses into the territory of his seminary buddy, Father Boland, who is stirring up good things in his ghetto neighborhood. A noble girl social worker, a fine, upstanding Jewish friend who talks like a Fourteenth Street Mary Worth, a young Negro mother of such sanctity that she passes out of sight, and four other angry young priests are about to make things hum in the slum. However, the Bishop releases a diocesan depth charge and atomizes the underground. Contemplating the conservative, hide-bound hierarchy, Father Kealey leaves the priesthood. A serious and intricate controversy given a shallow and short shrift. Whatever happened to Barry Fitzgerald?