Someone mentioned this movie on Facebook today, and I found myself tumbling down the YouTube rabbit hole, where I discovered this astonishing clip. How have I not seen this before?
It’s from “Change of Habit,” Elvis’s last studio picture (released in 1969), about a guitar-playing doctor in the inner city who develops feelings for a kind-hearted nun, played by Mary Tyler Moore.
As Wikipedia describes it:
In an era when Folk Mass was just catching on, Presley’s Dr. John Carpenter character is seen playing guitar and singing “Let Us Pray” in an early depiction of folk music at Mass.
That about sums it up. Here’s a glimpse at church in the midst of change. Nuns wore habits, women wore hats, the priest prayed ad orientem — and Elvis was rockin’ down by the front pew ( just on the other side of the altar rail.)
One woman in the congregation notes: “Give me the old days, when you could go to Mass and not think about a blessed thing.”
