Watch the movies Doubt Doubt a play by John Patrick Shanley explores the concept of doubt in relation to the Catholic Church and a suspected case of child abuse. The play Doubt is carefully crafted to raise important issuesfrom faith to cynicism compassion to discipline and righteousness to obediencebut it recognizes the complexity of all these ideas and avoids taking sides. Doubt is one of those finely judged dramatic arguments in which it is possible to empathize with every point of view and the question of doubt is worked in several ways through the characters.