In the November 28 episode of the ABC show, “The Practice,” an attorney, Jimmy, informed a judge, Roberta, that he is breaking up with her. She told him that he’ll be coming back and then explained why: “Because of your mother and father. You were raised as a strict Catholic, you grew up sexually repressed, and what you’re going to be looking for in a woman more than anything else is a woman who liberates you sexually, who makes you feel sexual.”
In the November 7 episode, there was a scene that featured a Catholic male objecting to his fiancee’s wedding dress. The woman, who was not Catholic, remarked that if she had to eat Communion, he had to put up with her dress.
Catholic League president William Donohue issued the following statement to the press:
“We’ve had our share of problems with ABC, and with the executive producer of ‘The Practice,’ David E. Kelley. Now they’re at it again. The wholly unnecessary digs that were made at Catholicism in the November 7 and November 28 episodes demonstrate Kelley’s continued fixation on the Roman Catholic Church. Kelley needs no excuse to find a way to stick it to Catholics—he is a master of the gratuitous shot.
“The correspondence that I’ve had with Kelley in the past gave me reason to believe that he might change his ways. But apparently he has no intentions of doing so. If ‘The Practice’ continues like this, the Catholic League will take a more confrontational approach.”
