NSS supports Penn & Teller’s right to attack the Vatican

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...on TV




An American TV show, in which the NSS features, has come under ferocious attack from Catholic groups, who are calling for future series to be dropped. One internet site where the show was available for viewing has taken it down.

But Keith Porteous Wood, one of the interviewees in the show, was unrepentant, saying he was proud to have to been a part of the programme. “Penn & Teller said something that was long overdue – that the Vatican has a lot of answering to do for its corruption, greed and disgraceful attempts to cover up child abuse by its priests. Even worse than that is the damage through its irrational and dishonest opposition to contraception. This is playing a major role in the population explosion that the planet simply cannot support, in unnecessary deaths from AIDS and in massively increasing poverty” he said. “What is truly shocking is that governments and international organisations are unwilling to take on the Vatican, which uses its position as a half church half nation state to maximise its power while minimising its accountability”.

The Penn & Teller “BS!” show, which goes out on the Showtime premium cable channel (owned by CBS), used its season’s last episode to launch an all-out attack on the Vatican.

The uncompromisingly critical assault has enraged the Catholic League, a right-wing group whose head, Bill Donohue, was interviewed on the Fox Channel where he likened Penn & Teller to Nazis.

Mr Donohue said: “The Nazis couldn’t have done better. Having been in this job for over 16 years, I have never seen a more defamatory, obscene and vicious show on TV. And I mean about any religious or demographic group—not just Catholics. The lies about the Catholic Church, to say nothing of the vile language used by Penn Jillette, were positively astounding. Moreover, it never attempted to be comedic—from the very beginning it advertised the show as payback for 2,000 years of alleged crimes.”

Bill Donohue took out an advertisement in the 18 August edition of Variety magazine in which he called for the show to be cancelled. He wrote: “CBS/Showtime needs to send Penn & Teller a message and let them know that they have crossed the line for the last time. This should be their final season. We know that they’ve been told before to drop the Catholic bashing, and yet they persist. By doing so, Penn & Teller have effectively stuck their middle finger right in the eye of CBS.”

Now Catholic websites are encouraging their readers to write to CBS about the show. Donohue says he will seek a meeting with Les Moonves of CBS. He has also sent DVDs of the show to bishops and religious leaders across the nation. “This cannot go unanswered,” he said.

Keith Porteous Wood commented: “The Penn and Teller show pulls no punches. It is famed for its outspokenness when confronting conmen, charlatans and snake oil merchants – why would it be different when it took on the Vatican? Although the Catholic League is trying to undermine the message of the programme by claiming it is factually incorrect, the truth is that the Vatican really is as bad as Penn and Teller paint it. What we now need is the Vatican being held to account by governments and international organisations. I am already pressing for this and encourage others to do the same.”


http://www.secularism.org.uk/nss-suppor ... llers.html
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There's a video on the bottom of the above linked page if you want to see the episode in question.

I thought it was a light-handed attack on the Vatican, myself...I mean there's so many more skeletons in the closet there.

The best part about the response: the VERY first thing Penn says in the episode.

Obviously Donohue didn't watch THAT closely.

I've watched the show in the past; they're pretty thought-provoking and funny, though sometimes they go a bit nutsoid...

I wonder what your catholic lobby would make of this

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAHH8GmgPrk[/youtube]

I won't defend Catholicism but I wonder how this would go over with if it was about Islam?

The Chaser team have attacked Islamic behaviour just as hard.

Was interesting. Not as balls to the wall outrageous as it was made out to be. Honestly i think it could of been a lot worse. If people are getting upset over this, then they need to look their faith and ask why the show scares them so. perhaps people are afraid that it will cause them to question their faith.

That being said I already take issues with organized religions that tell their followers what/how to believe instead of letting them come to those decisions by themselves.

How would the right-wing fundamentalists react?

No they haven't. They wouldn't dare do anything in front of a mosque, but they tried to climb Kevin Rudd's church, and they wouldn't go and mess around in mecca, but they went to the Vatican.

There wouldn't be any point to "mess[ing] about in Mecca" - it's not the "capitol" of Islam, it's "just" a holy site. It would be a bit like trying to "mess with" Christianity by doing something in Bethlehem.

It seems to be a difficult point for many Catholics (and their cousins, the Eastern Orthodox) to grasp, but theirs are the only major faiths that have one central guiding figure who has been given some sort of authority to tell his followers what to believe. Such centralization of power would seem ludicrous to, for instance, a United Methodist congregation, so used to telling their own bishops which articles of faith apply in their particular group. Similarly, if Islam had one central figure to guide it, the wars fought for so many centuries between the Shiite and Sunni sects would have been no more significant than the schisms in Catholicism have been. (Nobody fought wars over the Arian Heresy, to the best of my knowledge...)

However, it is plainly obvious that while the Catholic Church has sung the virtues of modesty and poverty over the millennia, they have at the same time built a palace of wealth and extravagance for their leaders that would have staggered the Bourbon kings. Vatican officials have sheltered priests who committed sexual acts upon children in their care, moving them from parish to parish when simple denial was no longer sufficient, yet have threatened to withhold Last Rites, one of the most sacred covenants in Catholicism, from certain US Senators for not being sufficiently vigilant in denying funding to groups like Planned Parenthood (because PP frequently advises the use of, and even provides, condoms). The Church has used its "majesty" to complain about Third World poverty, then fought to deny those very same people the birth control that would enable them to improve their situation. The stench of hypocrisy rising from those gilded halls is so prevalent, those who point it out only rise to our attention when one of their subjects pitches a fit about it. (I for one don't watch P&T on a regular basis, and would have been unaware of this entire contretemps had it not been for Mr. Donohue's childish tantrum.)

It is where the faithful go on their Haj. That makes it special and unique.

ruveyn