The Ugly Priest reveals a vocation in shambles, deteriorated not only because of Father Bernard’s moral lapses but also because of his life’s lack of substance and value. His duties at Immaculate Conception Parish on the West Side of Chicago are tedious and distressing. The sin, dying, dishonesty and infidelity of his parishioners drains him. Deepening his distress is his life at a rundown, disintegrating parish with an outdated liturgy and a pastor who is a rude, spiteful and offensive old man. Father Bernard’s attempt to save himself from his cheerless, desolate life leads him down a dangerous path. Can he salvage his failing vocation and repair his troubled soul? Will he find the strength to restore the spiritual meaning and substace that once guided him as a priest? The Ugly Priest is telling story of a priest’s missteps with the women who haunt his life, and his struggle to repair his soul and restore his vocation. It is a story of deceit, vulnerability and the loss of commitment; it displays the devastation of human frailty and reveals weaknesses that even a priest can’t escape.