Richard Plepler is the CEO of HBO, and the Catholic League’s dealings with him in the past have been cordial and professional. But he has obviously allowed Bill Maher to continue expounding his anti-Catholic rants with impunity. Here is a sample of what Maher said on a recent episode:
•The pope and the cardinals are known to stick together “when you’re molesting kids.”
•“I kid the cardinals. They chipped in. They got him a t-shirt that said, ‘I’m not retiring. I’m being put out to stud.’”
•According to Maher, the pope “said there were moments where it seemed like the Lord was sleeping. Wow! Sleeping. Or like the kids at Catholic summer camp—pretending to be asleep perhaps.”
The question for Plepler is simple: are there no lines that Maher can cross before he is finally reined in? Are we to believe that no one at HBO has any say over his vicious rants against the Church? If it were some other segment of the population that was being trashed over and over again, are we to understand that absolutely nothing would be done about it?
Catholic League president Bill Donohue has had a cordial relationship wth Richard Plepler for many years, even though they don’t always see eye to eye. Recently Donohue wrote Plepler a letter asking just how far he was prepared to let Maher go in pushing the envelope. Although Plepler didn’t reply to Donohue’s letter, for the next few weeks Bill Maher ceased his vicious attacks on the pope.
