This Is How You Handle The Catholic League’s Criticism of Your New Movie

Earlier this year, the Sundance Film Festival premiered a movie called The Little Hours. It’s a comedy about a servant from medieval Italy who escapes his master and hides out at a convent… which happens to be full of nuns who have no business being in a convent. Think Sister Act if some of the women didn’t actually care about God.

As soon as the film was shown, along with another poking fun at the Church,
Bill Donohue of The Catholic League was quick to denounce both.

This just goes to prove, one more time, that Hollywood is utterly incapable of making a movie about traditional Catholics that is not wholly stereotypical. Now that Sony — a studio with a history of anti-Catholic films — has acquired the rights, look for us to say much more when this flick hits the big screen.

“The Little Hours” makes “Novitiate” look tame. It is trash, pure trash.

…

Perhaps Sundance will host a film about all those sexually free souls who threw restraint to the wind. Many, however, are dead, and those who plundered on are not exactly beaming with joy. Not the kind of film that is likely to attract Sony. It prefers to deal with sadistic sisters.

This is typical for Donohue. No one is allowed to make fun of the Church ever. And when the story isn’t a parody or satire — but an accurate reflection of actions taken by the Church’s leaders, like in Spotlight — he only gets madder.

But the team behind The Little Hours handled it perfectly. They didn’t respond to Donohue. Instead, they used his criticism in a poster for the film.

Beautiful.

Actress Aubrey Plaza discussed the criticism with Conan O’Brien the other night, politely mocking the criticism of someone who obviously doesn’t get the joke.

The film hits theaters on June 30.