During a five-week stretch in June and July, the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” ridiculed priests six times and the pope once; all of the priest jokes were sexual in nature and painted priests as molesters.
· June 18: Robin Williams gets into an extended diatribe about priests as pedophiles
· June 20: Leno cracks a joke about priests as pedophiles
· June 21: Leno makes a joke about a drunken pedophile priest
· July 12: Leno ridicules the pope for restating Catholic doctrine on salvation
· July 18: Leno portrays all priests as pedophiles
· July 23: Leno jokes about priests using the Harry Potter books as “bait” to lure kids
· July 23: Leno talks about a priest who pays to see a male stripper at a gay nightclub and jokes that the priest was cheating on his altar boy
Hypocritical priests make for good script, but in Jay Leno’s mind, priests apparently have a monopoly on hypocrisy. This suggests that either he is clueless about other forms of hypocrisy, or there is a strong animus against Catholicism at work. If it’s the former, the Catholic League can help—we track lots of hypocrites, many of whom live in Leno’s Hollywood backyard. If it’s the latter, we suggest he knock it off.
