The Comedy Central show, “South Park,” has a record of Catholic bashing, but no episode was worse than the one that aired on July 19 (it was repeated on July 22). The basic plot of this show centered on a priest who tells children they will burn in hell unless they confess and “eat the crackers” (read: Holy Communion). During the course of the show, the following attacks on Catholicism were presented:
- The priest is caught by the children having sex with a parishioner in the confessional
- The priest tells a nun “the Jews crucified our savior. If you don’t go to hell for that, what the hell do you go to hell for?”
- The nun calls the Vatican to see if the priest is right; the pope appears senile
- Transubstantiation is described as “just plain silly” and the kids wonder whether “Jesus was made of crackers”; they also ask whether “all we have to do is confess our sins and eat crackers” to avoid hell
- The father of the Jewish boy tells his son “Christians use hell to scare people into believing what they want them to believe”
William Donohue contacted the media about this episode and presented the following account:
“Many in the media ask me if I think that those who offend Catholic sensibilities do so intentionally. Most of the time I simply say that we make our decisions not on intent, but on effect. But in the case of this ‘South Park’ episode, only a fool would give its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, a pass.
“I understand the show is in trouble. Perhaps by scraping the bottom of the barrel, Parker and Stone think they can up their ratings. It’s too bad these bums don’t play baseball—then they might find out what stigma and sensitivity training are all about.”
