 Roman Catholics in New Zealand have been urged to boycott a television network for its plan to show an episode of South Park that features a bleeding statue of the Virgin Mary. The episode, titled Bloody Mary, is due to be screened on May 10 by TV Works - a subsidiary of Canadian-owned Canwest International - on its C4 free-to-air network. The episode shows a statue of Mary bleeding, taken to be a miracle until Pope Benedict 16th suggests it is simply menstruation.
| Well. Obviously the cartoonists must be killed. |
New Zealand's seven Roman Catholic bishops issued a letter on Sunday urging the country's half a million Catholics to boycott TV Works' TV3 network news and companies that advertised products on the station. The bishops' letter, read at Masses and published on the church website, called the episode's depiction of Mary "ugly and tasteless".
| You're not used to that yet? |
"Making known the extent of our offense might give them pause to consider that press freedom is not as license to incite intolerance or to promote hated or derision based on religion, race or gender," the letter said.
| So, which embassies are New Zealand Christians going to burn down? |
TV3 earlier this month apologised to Muslims for causing offense after it screened the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The publication of the cartoons, first in Denmark then several other countries, prompted angry demonstrations in many Muslim countries, and deadly riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan. TV Works' chief operating officer Rick Friesen said if Catholics thought they might be upset by the South Park episode they should not watch it.
| That's the same thing they told the turbans, right? |
"We absolutely expect there's segments of society that would be offended by the programme," he said. Prime Minister Helen Clark said she had not seen the episode but it sounded "revolting". TV Works was free to run the programme but had to weigh that freedom against a potential viewer backlash, she said.
| I'm sure the local KFC is toast. Knights of Columbus are going to be exploding all over the place. |
| agree it's not gonna happen, Fred. OTOH it's a bit rich for the station to apologize to Muslims but deliberately give offense to Catholics. (Of whom I'm not one BTW, just sayin ...) |
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