New York, 26th May 2005 (CNA)
- Shareholders in the media giant, Viacom,
will be greeted by many unhappy faces as they
enter a meeting at New York’s Marriot Marquis
Hotel this afternoon.
William Donahue, president of the Catholic
League, an organization for religious and civil
rights, is leading a charge, railing against the
company, and their subsidiary, Showtime, for
airing a program which they call “a full frontal
assault” on the late Mother Theresa and the
Catholic Church.
The program, “Holier than thou”, starring
magician entertainers Penn and Teller, paints
Mother Theresa and her Sisters of Charity as
“cruel, exploitative, self-serving nun[s] who
ripped off the poor,” according to
Donahue.
“In the 12 years that I have been president
of the Catholic League,” he wrote yesterday, “I
have never witnessed a more vicious attack on
Catholicism than what appeared this week on the
Showtime program, ‘Penn and Teller.’ The
episode, ‘Holier Than Thou,’ was a frontal assault
on Mother Teresa and her order of nuns,
Missionaries of Charity (as well as Gandhi and the
Dali Lama).”
In the episode, says Donahue, “We are told
that Mother Teresa intentionally let the poor
suffer, providing neither beds nor bathroom
facilities. ‘She had the f—king coin and
pissed it away on nunneries,’ says Penn. As
for the nuns who worked with Mother Teresa, they
are referred to as ‘f—king c—ts.’”
The Catholic League announced yesterday
that it would hold a press conference outside of
the Manhattan hotel at 1:30 today and that copies
of Donahue’s statement regarding the show would be
handed out to shareholders as they enter.
Likewise, they said that additional copies
would be mailed to bishops and other interested
parties throughout the nation.
Donahue continued: “It does not bother me
when they call me ‘Catholic Boy’ on the show
(though the term ‘Jew Boy’ would never cross their
lips), nor does it concern me when they talk about
‘f—kers like Bill Donohue [who] only see good in
her.’ But when they mock the Catholic
Church’s teaching on the meaning of suffering, and
when they say of the poor that ‘They had to suffer
so that Mother F—king Teresa could be
enlightened,’ then they are behaving like
monsters.”
