On last night’s episode of the FX network program, “The Shield,” a Catholic priest was portrayed as someone who allowed a gang to deal drugs under his watch, clipping off a share of the profits for himself.
In another scene, an undercover police officer enters the confessional to confront the priest about the drug dealers, saying that the gang has a lien on him: the priest is accused of being a child molester. At this, the priest explodes, stating that “Just because some sick perverts decide to live out their fantasies through the collar doesn’t mean that every priest is a gay pedophile.” The confrontation continues outside the confessional and at this point the priest admits to fathering a child with the gang leader’s sister.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today:
“There is something sick going on over at Fox. On October 8, the Fox program ‘Bones’ mocked the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation; on October 21, gay priests were painted as molesters on the Fox show ‘Family Guy’; and last night on the Fox cable network channel FX, viewers were introduced to a morally corrupt priest; for good measure, the stereotype of gay priests as pedophiles was floated once again. Guess the writers who wrote these Catholic-bashing scripts must have been obsessed with Catholicism all summer long. Looks like they need help.
“The persons whom we have been dealing with at Fox have shown no interest in addressing the obvious bigotry at work. So now we will try Jack Abernethy, the CEO at Fox Broadcasting. While we do not have an e-mail address for him, we have one for Marcy Ross, Programming Executive Vice President. This has got to end before things heat up any more.”
Contact Marcy Ross: marcy.ross@fox.com
