friar in french

reading a wikipedia article about fr. ronald knox. i take it the fr. means "friar" but maybe i am wrong.
The french version of the article says mr. knox's title became "Mgr Knox" once he had become a priest. what exactly does "mgr" stand for? (in the article the typeset is different but copy and paste did not do the trick here: the m is normal size, the gr small and "to the top"...)

sorry my dictionary did not help here

It's Monseignour.

Yes, Monseignor.

And "Fr." is the abbreviation of "Father" (i.e. the way a priest is addressed) not "friar." Knox would have started his career as Fr. Knox and become Mgr. Knox later in life. ("Monsignor" in the Catholic church is a distinction conferred only on certain priests who hold some particularly important office, or who have served with particular distinction during their careers.)

cheers i'm glad i asked

The usual English spelling in Monsignor, as in zashibis's second attempt.

Knox came up in conversation just the other week. Supposedly once he was in a railway compartment, staring at the Times crossword for a minute or two. A neighbor asked "Would you like a pencil?" "No, thanks; I've just finished," he said, putting the paper away.

Oh, and on "Fr." --

Frederick Rolfe, "Baron Corvo" published his play Hadrian VII as "Fr. Rolfe" leading people to think he was a Catholic priest -- something the Church had always been to smart to allow, however much he thought he wanted it.

something the Church had always been to smart to allow, however much he thought he wanted it.

-== PARSING ERROR ==-

Please elaborate!

Apparently TT didn't like my link.

I'll try again.

Frederick Rolfe Baron Corvo.

I had put Baron Corvo in quotes; maybe that was the problem.

Well, I found that link by myself. What puzzled me was the unintelligibility of your final line.

Yeah, I couldn't be arsed to figure out how to say it correctly. I thought people would understand what I meant. Sorry. Here goes:

. . . leading people to think that he was a Catholic priest, although the Church had always to be smart to admit him to the priesthood, however much he wanted, or he thought he wanted, to be a priest.

Still not elegant.

although the Church had always to be smart to admit him to the priesthood

OK, I think I understand now, assuming I have to replace 'to be smart' with 'been too smart' from your original post.

Right.