If you turn on the television tonight and see a priest, your first thoughts, face it, are not gonna be pleasant. "Oh no!", you will think. "What NOW?" And, if you are Catholic, you will think of the time Father O'Mackey asked you to stay late after Sunday school. You will then try to convince yourself that nothing happened. Because nothing did.

But if you find out that all the television priest is doing is something completely innocuous, such as holding a bake sale, or perhaps solving various mysteries, you will breathe a sigh of relief. "See," you will tell yourself. "Priests are not all bad!" And then, once again, your thoughts will turn to Father O'Mackey. "No," you will think. "Not O'Mackey. Absolutely not."

And then you will think of a simpler time, say twenty years ago, when seeing a priest on television would not fill you with repulsion. When the mystery-solving priest was the title character of the "Father Dowling Mysteries", played by Tom Bosley.

(Of course, in this analogy, it means that you watched "Father Dowling Mysteries" twenty years ago. Which means now you're in your eighties — or beyond. Godspeed.)

But you're probably not aware that Bosley, who also played the very goyishe father on "Happy Days", was actually a full-blooded Jew. So much for television priests.

And Father O'Mackey? Well, why would WE care about your problems with Father O'Mackey? We're Jewish.