Oh yeah, that monk in Rabelais was awesome. "The greatest monk who ever monked since the monking world monked its first bit of monkery!"
However, I would argue that he, too, was in fact written in part to make Catholic monks look bad. He was deliberately cast as an extremely a-typical monk, an anti-monk if you will, compared to whom real monks were sordid and lame.
Of course that sort of sentiment isn't as noticeable in Rabelais since he makes fun of pretty much everyone.