She was a scream as perennial Catholic schoolgirl nerd Mary Katherine Gallagher on “Saturday Night Live.” Now, however, Molly Shannon is taking that act in a different direction:

HBO just picked up a comedy from veteran Simpsons writer-producer Tim Long with Molly Shannon attached to star. The untitled comedy would star the Saturday Night Live alumna as a nun who makes the difficult decision to leave the convent and confront life in the outside world. Shannon’s character became a nun after getting her heart broken at 18. Now she is an utterly innocent woman in her early 40s who has never had sex and has to discover the modern world in all of its tawdriness. “It’s James Joyce meets Judd Apatow — a female 40-Year-Old Virgin with a huge dollop of Catholic weirdness thrown in,” Long said. Shannon, of course, knows a thing or two about playing offbeat characters of the Catholic faith, having played awkward school girl Mary Katherine Gallagher on SNL. The show will also showcase Shannon’s singing talent. It “will be outrageously funny — it’s Molly Shannon, for crying out loud — but it’ll also be a serious look at a woman who’s 40 but emotionally still in her teens and who needs to get wise very quickly,” Long said. The show is not going to shy away from thorny issues such as religion and sexuality, which was a main reason for Long and Shannon to take it to HBO.

I imagine William Donohue is already drafting a press release.