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A priest deals with the constant struggle between his spiritual goals, his earthly temptations, and his personal ideals in this British drama. Eddie Dawson (John Michie) and Bobby Winterman (Ben Taylor) are best friends attending a Catholic school in North Yorkshire in the mid-1950s. Eddie feels a calling to God as he grows older and decides to study for the priesthood, but his unorthodox ideas about church policies mark him as a rebel early on; he also finds himself uncomfortably attracted to a fellow seminarian in his all-male environment. When Eddie is given a parish to tend in a working class village, he sparks a scandal by honoring the request of an unwed mother to baptize her child. Transferred to a more open-minded congregation in London, Eddie finds his vow of celibacy sorely tempted by the sexy teenage daughter of one of his churchgoers, and he angers his superiors when he questions church doctrine in a controversial magazine article. The furor brings Bobby back into Eddie's life when the former, now a journalist, decides to write a story about his old friend. Monk Dawson was the debut feature for producer/director Tom Waller.