Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the NBC show, “The Blacklist,” which aired last night:
It is virtually impossible for Hollywood to portray a priest who is normal, or one who is not sexually challenged. Maybe that’s because there aren’t too many normal script writers who work there; we know for a fact that there is no shortage of sexual deviants employed in Tinseltown. No matter, NBC told us last night what its idea of a priest is.
The January 31 edition of “The Blacklist” featured a fringe-order priest who has been disciplined for—what else?—his active sex life. He does not go by the name Father; he is simply known as Tommy.
Tommy is depicted as your ordinary parish priest—he is suspected of being a serial murderer. An attractive black woman spots him at an airport bar, and, surprise surprise, she opens up to him about her fiancée’s infidelity. Tommy is turned on by her and—we could see this coming—slides his hand across her behind.
An FBI agent tells the head of this wacko order Tommy is “burning men and women alive,” the kind of thing we would expect. For good measure, the head honcho is pressed to break the Seal of the Confessional, which of course he does. Tommy, we learn, has been fantasizing about killing women, suffering from “lustful urges” and “purification by fire.”
Guess what? Tommy winds up with the gal in the airport whom he groped. This time he gags her and covers her in plastic wrap. (It is not certain whether it is Saran Wrap.) He smacks her, strips naked, covers himself with gasoline and puts his clothes back on. When the cops come, he sets himself on fire, screaming “this is the way to salvation.”
Wouldn’t you like to know what NBC’s idea of a rabbi is? Better yet, an imam!
Contact Rebecca Marks: Rebecca.Marks@nbcuni.com
