Miramax to Delay General Release of ‘Priest’ After Protest by Catholics

Relenting in the face of protests from a Catholic group, a Disney-owned film company agreed Friday to postpone the general release of the controversial movie “Priest” from Good Friday to three days after Easter.

The movie, in which priests are depicted having sex with women and men, was criticized by William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who complained that the original national release date of April 14--the day that Christians observe as the anniversary of Christ’s crucifixion--was a deliberate effort to “put salt in the wounds” of believers.

Although an office of the U.S. Catholic bishops has said the movie is not anti-Catholic, Donohue called “Priest” an insult to Catholics because priests in the film are depicted as suffering from a “depraved condition as a direct consequence of church teachings.” His group, which is based in New York, has no official church connection but claims a membership of 150,000.

Mark Gill, a spokesman for Miramax, which distributes the film, defended the movie Friday, noting it had won praise at international film festivals. The company “was surprised by the vehemence” of the protest over the release date, but would change it out of respect for concerns expressed by the group, he said.

The film, which opened in Los Angeles and New York on Friday, will be released April 7 in 10 other large cities and on April 19 in the remainder of the United States, Gill said.

The U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington, the American bishops’ administrative arm, issued no comment on the movie except to distribute a generally critical review of “Priest” by its Office for Film and Broadcasting.

The Catholic League’s adverse reaction to “Priest” and other movies with potentially offensive elements differs from the approach taken by some other Catholic organizations concerned with moral values in the entertainment media.

“I have no doubt about Donohue’s sincerity, but I think his campaign will backfire,” said TV writer-producer Ron Austin, a leader of Catholics in Media, a local group that encourages sensitive media treatments of moral and religious themes and has the backing of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

“I think Donohue is falling into the ‘Last Temptation (of Christ)’ trap,” Austin said, recalling the publicity generated by religious groups’ protests that benefited the 1987 movie at the box office.

“The public clearly wants movies, TV shows and books about religion today, but if we (religionists) become too thin-skinned, then we won’t get many films that deal with the subject.”