Catholic Editorial Blasts TV Show’s Foes

In an unusually strong editorial, the newspaper of the Los Angeles Catholic archdiocese said Friday that an independent Catholic group’s boycott campaign against the new ABC-TV series “Nothing Sacred” is unfair and unrepresentative of most Catholic views.

The hourlong show, featuring a young priest’s struggles in a poor parish, “should be allowed to develop before anyone passes final judgment,” said the Tidings, the weekly paper of the archdiocese.

Though the paper does not speak for Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Editor Tod M. Tamberg said he took into account the cardinal’s 1993 pastoral letter advising a constructive approach to critiquing Hollywood. Also, a memo circulated recently by the U.S. Catholic bishops said the program could prove beneficial to the church in the long run.

“A discussion of the role of the church and the priesthood in society and in the media could be a worthwhile result,” wrote Bishop Thomas J. Costello of Syracuse, N.Y., head of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ communications committee.

Though only three of 13 episodes of “Nothing Sacred” have aired so far, the controversy generated by William Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has a longer history related to recent Hollywood-and-religion culture wars.

The Walt Disney Co.--the target of a boycott by Southern Baptists and other evangelical Protestant groups on a variety of issues--was already being boycotted by the conservative Catholic League over “The Priest,” a movie distributed by a Disney subsidiary.

Once Disney affiliate ABC released the pilot show of “Nothing Sacred” in August, Donohue urged that petitions be sent to Disney headquarters in Burbank demanding the cancellation of what Donohue called a “frontal assault on Roman Catholicism.”

Meanwhile, Donohue said Friday that Chrysler-Plymouth and American Honda Motors had become the 14th and 15th sponsors to withdraw advertising from the program.

Susan Sewell, a spokeswoman for ABC headquarters in New York, said, “The show is sold out for the entire season,” noting that as one advertiser drops out another takes its place. The show competes on Thursday nights against NBC’s highly rated “Friends,” but Sewell said that this week’s program was up 12% in the ratings over the previous week.

Donohue conceded that Thursday’s episode was better than the previous two. “I did appreciate that [the priest who is the lead character] showed real pastoral care” in dealing with a widower who disliked the modernizing changes in the Catholic Church, Donohue said. “But if you are a traditionalist, you are somehow a bigot.”

The show’s producers, he asserted, “are social engineers who give a positive spin to dissident Catholics who ignore or openly object to church teachings on sexuality.”

The Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper, which rarely takes strong stances against other Catholic figures, lit into the Catholic League. The editorial noted that Donohue’s claimed supporters include a “right-wing fringe (Catholic) group” and a fundamentalist Protestant organization, the American Family Assn.

Addressing Donohue personally, the paper, which has a circulation of 30,000, contended that many faithful, intelligent Catholics “resent your self-appointment” as censor of Hollywood.

Despite its occasional flaws, the program “is a television drama; it is not the catechism of the Catholic Church,” the editorial said.

An independent producer, Ralph Sariego, said he was “surprised, pleased and impressed” by the editorial. Sariego is president of Catholics in Media Associates, a group of entertainment professionals who run Mahony’s annual Communion brunch and awards program for the entertainment industry.

Jack Shea, co-founder of Catholics in Media and the new president of the Directors Guild of America, told the archdiocesan newspaper that he likes the show.

“It shows the priest as a vulnerable human being (who) is concerned with the basics of our religion,” Shea said.

Other Catholics have objected to the program. The Philadelphia Catholic archdiocese’s newspaper this week urged Catholics to boycott the show and its advertisers.

David Manson, the co-creator and executive producer of “Nothing Sacred,” said at his production studio in Canoga Park that he was pleased by the Los Angeles Catholic paper’s editorial in light of published criticisms by Donohue.

“This campaign has been very unseemly,” said Manson.

His critics rarely mention that Jesuit Father Bill Cain, who lives in New York City, is co-creator of the series and continues as a writer and producer, he said. Cain uses the pseudonym Paul Leland in the show’s credits.

“Our intention has always been to draw characters who are complex with different points of view that come into conflict,” Manson said.

In the Catholic press, priests and laypeople have pointed to some technical errors or odd story lines. In his memo to other U.S. bishops, Costello said ABC was informed that its initial program erred in having a bishop act on information that came to him through a taped confession to a priest.

Stu Bloomberg, entertainment chairman at ABC, said Friday that the network has no regrets about airing a conflict-filled program dealing with faith. He said the protests are having no effect.

“We are extremely proud of the series,” Bloomberg said. “If this show were canceled today, the hue and cry would be louder about taking a quality show off the air than the scattered applause of pressure groups.”