***The coordinates may be a little off. I have to get back there for a new reading. In the meantime, use the hint and avoid the thorns. The cache is not in the thorns.***
M*A*S*H had some help in pushing the boundaries of television. There was All in the Family, which talked about race and other controversial issues. There was Maude, starring Bea Arthur as the Anti-Archie Bunker, which also discussed several political and controversial issues. Mary Tyler Moore was another show that changed television, which a Time Magazine article in 2010 called “a sophisticated show about grownups among other grownups, having grownup conversations." M*A*S*H did its part in pushing the boundaries of television with its depiction of war and loss, including one of their own with the off-screen death of Henry Blake.
One character that could have quickly led to controversy was the Catholic Priest, Father Francis John Patrick Mulcahy, the Jesuit from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There was a problem right from the beginning: the characters nickname was an offensive racial slur. The nickname from the book made it into the movie, but it did not make it into the television show, with a shortened version only being used twice, once by Trapper in “The Pilot” and once by Hawkeye in the season 1 episode “Dead Dad”.
Father Mulcahy was played in the movie by Rene Auberjonois (Benson, Deep Space Nine) and in the pilot episode of the TV series by an actor names George Morgan. William Christopher took the reins of the character when the producers decided that they needed a “quirkier” actor to play the role of the good Father.
One thing the producers of the show did not do was take the easy way out with this character. It would have been so easy to relegate Fr. Mulcahy to the background and not deal with the issue of religion in a war zone, or on television at all. They also could have turned the character in the morality police making him not only a boring character, but one that disrupted whatever else was going on. In the beginning, Mulcahy was very naïve often not seeing, or not wanting to see the womanizing going on all over the camp. Eventually, while never being comfortable with it, he accepted it as a part of what was going on around him. Mulcahy was ambitious even while acknowledging that is not how a priest should be. In the episode “Captain’s Outrageous”, Mulcahy loses his patience when he learns that he was once again passed over for promotion, going as far as marching into Col. Potter’s office and demand that he do something about it. He was livid as he told Potter about how many “ninnys” who were equal with him now outranked him. It wasn’t the only time he would lose his temper. In the 8th season episode “April Fools” when his bathrobe is stolen from the shower and all he was left with was a “house frock”, Klinger laughed that he better be careful or he will be a “defrocked priest” and his response was “Klinger, how would you like the last rites… and a few lefts!”
This line comes from the fact that Mulcahy is a boxing fan, and even coaches boxing at the CYO.
The thing that really drives Mulcahy is the need to be needed. He desperately wants to make a contribution and while at times, that is tempered by obvious fear, Father Mulcahy really comes through when he has to.
In “Mulcahy’s War”, wanting to see the front after being admonished by a wounded soldier that they had nothing to talk about, Mulcahy defied orders to go to the front with Radar to pick up a wounded soldier. En route, the solder starts to choke and while under fire and constant bombing and with instructions over the radio, Mulcahy performs a tracheotomy on the soldier saving his life.
In “En Eye for a Tooth” he volunteers to act as a counter weight when a chopper pilot has to pick up a single wounded soldier.
In “Out of Gas” we get to see a different side of Mulcahy as we learn he has black market connections in order to procure food and supplies for the orphans in the area. He uses those connections to get some medication needed in the camp, but when Winchester messes up the deal, Mulcahy is not above stealing the medication from the black marketeers.
The ultimate show of bravery and nerves comes in “War of Nerves” when Mulcahy offers counsel and even asylum to a soldier who is distraught when he learns his wife was unfaithful to him and even had a child while he was in Korea. When asylum is denied and the MPs come into the tent the soldier grabs a rifle pointing it at Father Mulcahy’s face. Incensed, he admonished the soldier for using him while it was convenient and as soon as it was not longer, he points a gun at him. After a stand-off, Father Mulcahy disarms the soldier by quickly grabbing the barrel of the rifle and throwing it across the tent, immediately embracing and forgiving the soldier. In this episode, Mulcahy defies the MPs, Col. Potter and even the army not relenting until he hears from the chief of Chaplins.
Father Mulcahy was described by producer Gene Reynolds as a very good priest, but he is not without flaws. In the episode “Dear Sis” Mulcahy is helping with the wounded as Margaret is trying to tirage an officer, he gets belligerent that he doesn’t want a nurse or a priest, he wants a doctor. He even blindly throws a punch hitting Mulcahy, who reacts by winding up punching the officer in the face. While the punch was wholy deserved, it bothered Mulcahy to the point where he actually turns to Hawkeye for counsel. When Mulcahy says he feels helpless Hawkeye says that he does things in surgery he is not good enough to do.
Father Mulcahy may be a very good priest, but he is an excellent character that had substantial growth throughout the run of the series. He never lost his faith and he always tried to add some comfort to a miserable situation. Whether it is for the soldiers, the enemy or the orphans, he did as much good, or even more, then the doctors who were the main act.