William Donohue commented today on last night’s “Nothing Sacred.”
“The October 9 ‘Nothing Sacred’ was laced with stereotypes and caricatures that fed the political message of this show: the Church’s teachings on abortion are ‘just propaganda to keep women in their place,’ the Church gives its blessings to war but not to abortion, unborn babies should be called ‘it’ and ‘fetus’ (even Father Leo, who counsels against abortion, says that the unborn child ‘is not a baby yet’), the Church should censure men who impregnate women out of wedlock but should be forgiving of the woman, etc.
“Here’s what Father Ray tells the woman, Rachel, who is considering abortion: ‘I told you what the Church teaches, in the confessional, but what you do-that depends on your own conscience, and that’s also what the Church teaches.’ The scriptwriters are deceitful because when Rachel went to confession to discuss abortion (the first show), Father Ray never explained the Church’s position. More important, what the real Church teaches is that abortion is a grave moral evil and that is why the Holy Father just last week branded it a ‘Holocaust.’ Furthermore, the Church teaches that each person’s conscience must be ‘well-formed.’
“If Father Ray were a real priest, he would have counseled against abortion while informing Rachel of the free crisis pregnancy services that are available (e.g. in New York, Cardinal O’Connor has pledged to pay for the fees of any woman – non-Catholics included – who agrees to take her unwanted pregnancy to term).
“Had Father Ray done his job, it is unlikely that Rachel would have had her abortion. But this man of compassion and non-judgmental characteristics was too busy telling a slumlord that he’ll denounce him from the pulpit, excommunicate him and damn him to hell. In short, the conclusion of this show is that the killing of innocent human life is not as serious a sin as greed. All this explains why the NBC show, ‘Access Hollywood,’ said that last night’s episode was ‘a slap in the face to the Catholic Church. “‘
