In the past five weeks, the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” has 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 tells a story 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
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
“Hypocritical priests make for good script, but in the world Jay Leno apparently lives in, priests have a monopoly on hypocrisy. This would seem to suggest that either he is clueless about other expressions of hypocrisy, or there is a strong animus against Catholicism at work. If it’s the former, the Catholic League can be of assistance—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.”
