Catholic Transcript Online

Ridiculing religion or religious leaders is gradually becoming "politically incorrect" again, as witness some of the more reasonable reactions to the recent Danish cartoons about the founder of Islam. But ridicule (and worse) is evidently still widely acceptable where Catholicism is the target.

A recent case in point is news from New Zealand where Catholic bishops have labeled a "South Park" episode shown there as "derisive, outrageous and beyond all acceptable standards of decency and good taste." The TV program, distributed by CanWest, a Canadian broadcaster, is a crude segment on the Blessed Virgin Mary, deemed "offensive not only to Catholics, but also to people of other faiths and women in general." The New Zealand bishops had asked CanWest not to air the program. In response, CanWest ran it 11 weeks ahead of schedule.

Signatories of the bishops’ formal letter of complaint included leaders of the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches, the Salvation Army, Islam and Judaism.

Here in America, the program ran on 7 December, and drew the censure of the United States bishops.

Surely this issue is one in which Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Protestants and Jews can join in ecumenical or interfaith efforts, as well as boycotts of advertisers. We have all had far too much of targeting religion by mindless media profiteers, who, not surprisingly, find themselves going in the opposite direction from persons of faith in God and respect for ethical norms of human conduct