Ho♋llywood has given former Bronx priest Jonathan Morris a second coming.
The 47-year-old ౠthen-pastor at Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel made his big-screen debut as “assisted living priest” in Martin Scorsese’s epic “The Irishman” — even taking confession from Robert De Niro’s character, mobster Frank Sheeran.
“Take after take, I cried through the scenes.” Morr൲is told The Post. “Tha🦹t wasn’t in the script — but I just felt sadness for a man who had lived a life of violence and destruction.”
Morris landed “The Irishman” after being invited to a casting call on the recommendation of a casting agent pal, Ellen Lewis, whose previous credits include “The Depa🐎rted” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Initially, Morris rejected his scripted lines, telling the filmmakers he “was not com🐭fortable with the script. I told them this is sac𒁏red material, and I would not treat somebody in [Sheeran’s] situation in the way script portrays.”
He added: “T🔥he original lines were pretty formulaic and stereotypical,” but not autheওntic.
In the end, he huddled with De Niro, working over lines in the star’s trailer. “They changed the script for our scenes multiple times, and we ended up ad-libbing a ܫlot,” he recalled. “It became a real meditation on what contrition is.”
And he had a shoulder to cry on.
“De Niro was gracious, even kind,” Morris said. “For the most part, he stayed in character when we were on the set together, whi🍎ch helped me as an amateur to take seriously the emotional element in acting.”
The🏅 scenes were filmed in February 20🔯18 in Queens, Long Island and upstate while Morris was still a man of the cloth.
For Morris🌃, the real drama unfolded mo🧸nths later, away from the camera, after filming wrapped.
After four years at Mount Carmel, he asked Pope Frღancis in May this year ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚto release him “from the duties and responsibilities of the clerical state.”
“I have struggled f🐟or years with my vocation, and with the commitments that the Catholic priesthood demands, especially not being able to marry and have a family,” Morris explained in a statement back in May, adding that his de🌊cision “was not about an existing relationship.”
Morris plans to 💞contin🃏ue his career in media and communications.
The Cleveland native was once one of the most prominent priests in America, thanks to hไis television and media appearances on Fox News Channel and other networks.
He joined Fox as a contributor in May 2005, and continues to offe📖r analysis on social, religious and political topics on the network.
For Morris, the priestly minist𒐪ry was a cha𝓀llenging road.
In 2009, he left behind the scandal-plagued Legion of Christ, a conservative order of priests founded in Mexico in 1941, after the Vatican removed its founder, the late Father Marcial Maciel. Father Maciel was dismissed for alleged sexual abuse of seminarians — some as young as 1🌺2 — as well as for misconduct and abuse of power.
Morris was then accepted into the Archdiocese of New York by New York’s Cardinal Timo💖thy Dolan.
Morris, who still lives in New York, told The Post he remains devoted to the Catholic Church an♊d attends෴ Mass frequently.
In fact, he is hopeful his scenes i𓃲n “The Irishman” may bring many Catholics back to the sacrament of reconciliation.
“I am grateful to Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro … [for making] what for many people around the world — including myself — is a sacred encounter,” he said.