- Monsignor Caldana: You've got a mama, haven't you? And you know how mamas are. They like to keep their sons around the house but they prefer their sons to do their hanky panky out of the house, as long as they come home at night for dinner, and the church is a jealous mama like all mamas.
- Nun: Yes. The church is like a mama. You know that.
- Don Mario: Oh, so you're advising me to live in an ambiguous dirty way... to get myself a girlfriend on the sly... like those priests who go to bed with their housekeepers and the nuns.
- Nun: What is he saying about nuns?
- Don Mario: There isn't anything to worry about as far as you're concerned.
- Monsignor Caldana: Well, wh-what has this got to do with me? What are you asking for? Renounce your vows. Get castrated. I don't care! But leave me in peace. I'm too old, I'm too tired and I'm sick. I'm fed up with you and your vows of celibacy. That's all there is to it!
- [Nun jabs him with needle]
- Monsignor Caldana: Ahhh! St. Lorenzo the martyr!
- Nun: Shame on you. Just a nip in the bottom.
- Valeria Billi: I was a singer in a pop group, The Dropouts. We worked dance halls on Sundays. Then, the Dropouts got drafted into the army and the group broke up. Besides, I was thinking Maurizio and I were going to get married. I've got some money in the bank. Instead, I was left with no job, no money, and no marriage.
- Valeria Billi: Oh God! It's the story of my life. One doesn't tell me he's married. The other one doesn't tell me he's a priest.
- Valeria Billi: Can't you see for yourself how unlucky I am? I even got stuck on your voice - and it was the voice of a priest. I'm so unlucky!
- Don Mario: A beautiful voice is a gift of God. And these days, it can even end as an investment. Look at Barbra Streisand!
- Valeria Billi: When will I see you?
- Don Mario: I don't know. May I be frank, Valeria? It isn't proper for a priest to go running around with a girl as - as exuberant as you.
- Valeria Billi: You find me attractive? Really?
- Don Mario: I really have to go, Valeria.
- Valeria Billi: Well, wait, Don Mario. Maybe what embarrasses you is the skirt? Mine, I mean. It's too short, isn't it?
- Don Mario: I never noticed; but, frankly, the skirt is too short.
- Don Mario: Go ahead, Valeria, unburden yourself. It will give us an idea of how you feel about your relations.
- Valeria Billi: If you really want me to? Should I tell you about me and Maurizio?
- Don Mario: Alright.
- Valeria Billi: Okay, I will. As a man, he satisfied me completely. When I was with him, I was a whole woman. I was completely fulfilled, physically and emotionally. Our love was like a force of nature. Untamed. Do you understand? We had sexual intercourse frequently and it always last a long time. Because, he and I were both very highly sexed. You realize, professor, that some women are highly sexed and some women are frigid. And I just happen to be one of the highly sexed ones. To give you an example...
- Don Mario: Yes, well, it was your social relations that I was referring to. Your relations to society; not your sexual exploits.
- Don Mario: What sort of work would you like to do then?
- Valeria Billi: The only thing I know how to do is sing. Before I worked with The Dropouts, I was with Cycles and before that with The Trippers. Those are music groups.
- Don Mario: I gathered as much.
- Valeria Billi: I was a pop singer before; then, I switched to romantic. It suited me better! Do you want me to hum something for you?
- Don Mario: If you like.
- Valeria Billi: [singing] My passion, my passion, my passion, My passion, my passion, my passion, It's hard to say when I miss you, It's only because I always do, My passion...
- Don Mario: My passion, my passion. The concept is very clear.
- Valeria Billi: Don Mario, is being lonely really a problem for being a priest? It is, isn't it? I mean, being lonely in the middle of a crowd, that's the loneliness of the priest and it's the hardest to bare. I read it at the beauty parlor.
- Valeria Billi: Excuse me if I embarrass you sometimes.
- Don Mario: No.
- Valeria Billi: But, it's because I'm happy. Like now! I know, I know there can't be anything between us, but friendship.
- Don Mario: Of course! What else could there be? And what is more beautiful than friendship between a woman and a man?
- Valeria Billi: Well, there might be other things too.
- Don Mario: Where's the crayfish? Crayfish is the king of the fish soup.
- Valeria Billi: It smells delicious.
- Waitress: Alright, it's the king of the soup; but, we're in a republic!
- Don Filippo: There are periods of doubt and crisis in every priest's life. There have been times particularly in my youth, when I'd been celebrating holy mass, when I would catch myself thinking: Why all this? What am I doing? The sense of useless pretense. Empty ritual. The death of God. Well, then we have to close our eyes and pray. Pray desperately until divine grace returns to illuminate us. What else can we do?
- Valeria Billi: Oh, there's a jinx on me. They're all married! One to a wife. The other to the Church.
- Nun: Jesus Christ be praised! Bachelors for life.
- Don Mario: Look, I can't come here to you and say straight out what's on my mind. Besides being a priest, I'm a man. A mature man. Not a boy! I have a certain reserve that makes me beat around the bush. It's true! I beat around the bush!
- Don Mario: Come on, Valeria, would you like it if I told you straight out that the dress you have on is vulgar, that you're hairdo looks terrible and that you're putting on weight?
- Valeria Billi: Darling, you say you're in love with me. That you want me.
- Don Mario: That, I didn't say.
- Valeria Billi: Alright, you didn't say it. Priest or no priest, you're a man. At least, I hope so. So, get a move on. Do something. We can't keep playing brother and sister for the rest of our lives. Besides, I'm an only child.
- Don Mario: "Get a move on. Do something." But, what? How? I've been thinking about it for days. Don't think I haven't.
- Jimmy Guitar: Why did you quit the music business?
- Valeria Billi: Well, it's a long story. Besides, now the public wants a skinny little kid, with no front, no behind and no voice. So...
- Jimmy Guitar: I don't care about the voice. But, there's got to be something behind -and something up front.
- Valeria Billi: My father, when he's all there, said proceeding through channels is the longest possible way to get from one point to another. I took the short cut.
- Monsignor Caldana: I refuse only to see those who bring shame on our children.
- Valeria Billi: Excuse me, what shame? There's a sheep in your flock that belongs to me. Give me my sheep back and we'll call it quits.
- Monsignor Caldana: The sheep already belongs to the Shepard.
- Valeria Billi: And if one of them gets tired of grazing. If one of them says, listen here, Shepard, I don't like your grass anymore, it doesn't agree with me, I'd rather have coffee and cake. You shouldn't try to stop him!
- Monsignor Caldana: You realize what you're saying?
- Valeria Billi: Yes, that I'm in love with a man and want to marry him.
- Monsignor Caldana: You want to marry a man whose already married to the church! No decent woman would even begin to think that...
- Valeria Billi: But, I didn't say that I was a decent girl. I said I was in love!
- Valeria's Father: Let's drink to it. One priest less and one more horse's ass like the rest of us. Drink!
- Monsignor Caldana: I'll appreciate you not telling me that tired old story about priest being men like all others. No! Because they're better than all the others. They're nothing if they're not superior.
- Don Mario: I would like to point out that things are changing. In the 16th Century they were still arguing about whether women had souls. Today, women even have the right to stand at the alter, next to the priest.
- Monsignor Caldana: But, they have not started to go to bed with them.
- Don Mario: Unfortunately, they have!
- Valeria Billi: I haven't told you, but, I've had two jobs offered me by a record company. Of course, now I'm a celebrity, the Priest's Wife. They'll do anything to sell records.
- Don Mario: I've been told, the way my request is being handled, well, it will go through without a single hitch. All my papers are in order.
- Valeria Billi: Then when can we - how long before you get the dispensation?
- Don Mario: Oh, soon! Soon, soon. they promised it soon. The Bishop told me so. Of course, he said, don't rush things.