TV stations tend to show the great 1944 film Going My Way, directed by Leo McCarey and starring Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald, more often around Christmas, even though only a couple of scenes are set during Advent. The film, however, always repays watching. In particular, it illustrates the superiority of moral suasion over coercion in the creation of civil order — a lesson always worth remembering. Although Going My Way won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, the film’s reputation rapidly declined beginning in the 1960s, and critical consensus has long dismissed as trite, sentimental, and unsophisticated. This is an entirely erroneous and indeed dimwitted interpretation of the film, and one that cries out for redress. The story is familiar: easygoing, likeable Father O’Malley (Bing Crosby) is assigned by the local Catholic bishop to help bring St. Dominic’s Church, a faltering urban congregation led by Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald), back to its feet and in particular to overcome its financial problems. Crosby’s O’Malley represents the liberal side of the church — as it was then manifested, it is important to remember — and Fitzgibbon the conservative aspect. The key element here is that Crosby’s liberalism is entirely limited to

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