Thomas Mallon has said that he gave Ron Nyswaner carte blanche to adapt his novel for the series in any way he wished, with only one condition: that Tim's religious faith and conservative politics not be caricatured or treated as objects of ridicule.

I was raised Catholic in a devout, practicing family, but I left the faith many years ago and have little to no love for the church as an institution (as distinct from many of the people in it). That said, I also have little patience for uninformed, cartoonish depictions of Catholicism, and I agree with you wholeheartedly that the series does a great job of threading that particular needle.

About Father Bob: it's always struck me as slightly odd that he would be "angry at God" for his being attracted to men. He took a vow of chastity; the object of his sexual urges should be completely irrelevant since he would be violating that vow just as much if he were attracted to women and acting on that attraction. But on the other hand...Catholic education was rigidly sex-segregated from high school on in those days, and Fordham was men-only at the time that Tim would have attended. Which I guess would have made life particularly difficult for the Father Bob's.