Public radio, Huck and the Eucharist

January 10, 2008 By

eucharist 01The radio skit wasn’t news, but it may, perhaps, make some real news.

During the Fair Game with Faith Salie broadcast on KCPW — the public radio station in northern Utah — the producers decided to air some political commentary with major, repeat major, religious content. Here is a link to the skit itself, although it appears that the station has taken this content offline or it has crashed due to high traffic.

However, here’s the key part of the script, as passed along by the Catholic League:

[Woman's voice]: And now another Huckabee family recipe leaked by his opponents.

[Male Voice]: Tired of bland unsatisfying Eucharists? Try this Huckabee family favorite. Deep-Fried Body of Christ — boring holy wafers no more. Take one Eucharist. Preferably post transubstantiation. Deep-fry in fat, not vegetable oil, ladies, until crispy. Serve piping hot. Mike likes to top his Christ with whipped cream and sprinkles. But his wife Janet and the boys like theirs with heavy gravy and cream puffs. It goes great with red wine.

[Woman's voice]: Now that is just ridiculous. Everyone knows evangelicals don’t believe in transubstantiation.

Let’s leave the Catholic League out of this one. That’s not the story.

This was satire and, thus, is protected speech. The station had every right to put this on the air. And evangelicals and Catholics have every right to protest — especially since this involved their tax dollars.

But, what is this story really about? Before we ask that question, let’s ask what the SKIT itself was about, since that may point toward whatever news story is here. Needless to say, the station’s leaders have been asked this question. Here is part of a post by KCPW blogger Bryan Schott:

So, I’ve been spending most of my day fielding calls and e-mails from people who are outraged by a skit that aired on Fair Game. … I can see where the outrage is coming from, but the skit was meant to poke fun at Mike Huckabee’s Southern roots and his problems with obesity. That’s not my interpretation, that’s why they wrote it.

Frankly, I don’t know how to respond to this. We don’t originate the show. We don’t have an editorial control. The host is a friend of mine — and she’s really upset that this is the reaction. She’s Catholic herself, and didn’t mean to poke fun at Jesus.

The point, you see, is that the producers of the show were not mocking Jesus and they were not mocking Roman Catholics. They were mocking Bible Belt people. They were mocking an evangelical from the Bible Belt who is running for president. The problem was that they had to use the Mass and the Catholic faith in order to get to the punch line about the evangelical target. Follow that?

So, what is the point? That Catholics should not vote for Huckabee? That many Catholics are tempted to vote for Huckabee and this offends progressive Catholics? That this was a journalist’s attempt to protest political cooperation between evangelical Protestants and traditionalist Catholics? Or was this simply a stupid skit that gives us insight into what a very, very small number of people in public radio think is funny?

wine and cheeseHere’s why I ask that question. I have received a few emails recently asking me if your GetReligionistas believe — as some of our comments page regulars clearly do — that the whole NPR universe is somehow (a) anti-religion, (b) anti-traditional forms of religion, (c) anti-evangelicals or (d) some combination of the above.

Personally, I think that NPR does some of the best religion-news coverage that is being done today — period. Click here for the network’s religion-news page. Then again, I also think The New York Times does some of the MSM’s best religion coverage.

Seriously, it’s hard to question NPR’s commitment to excellence. Does that mean that the critics of public-radio are totally wrong when they suggest that, well, many people at NPR and the network’s core audience have a rather blue-zip-code view of the world?

It’s way too simplistic to say that NPR people are all liberals and who are out to mock people like Mike Huckabee and the people who are voting for him.

But I will ask this question: Can you imagine a public-radio station airing a skit this blunt about, oh, any efforts that Barack Obama may make to reach out to Catholics? Wine, bries, soul food, watermelon and Eucharist? That Hillary Clinton might make to reach out to Muslims? Imagine the humor material lurking there. That John Edwards might make to reach out to Jews?

And will NPR do a straight national news story about this controversy? Just asking.

Print Friendly

Filed Under: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Journalism, Radio & TV
About TMatt

Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    I listen to NPR almost all the time in the car, and spend far more time in my car than i wish, that discomfort greatly mitigated by NPR’s commitment to quality.

    Except when it comes to even passing references, let alone direct analysis, relating to religion. Terry, i say d) myself. The trend is more towards b), but they ring the bell often enough on c) and a) (i’m thinking anywhere from “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” to “On the Media”) for me to wince, often, and occasionally pound the steering wheel.

    I have friends in academia who often make the same sort of facile, sweepingly snide cracks about “God-botherers” that would have them in an apoplectic fit if a student or colleague made them about a minority group as usually described — i put NPR as firmly in that mindset, except NPR doesn’t suddenly remember i’m in the room, and Neil Conan doesn’t hurriedly say, “Oh, Jeff, i don’t mean *you.”

    And given that, say, Bob Garfield doesn’t show much respect for traditional forms of anything, i just don’t get too wrapped around the axle over his slices at traditional religion. But i totally believe that they could air “deep fried hosts” as a passing comment, and be as baffled as my elderly father is at why the mere appearance of a three inch noose made of string can cause a month of riots. I get it, he doesn’t, and i’m not sure what it would take to explain it — ditto NPR and traditional religion of almost any sort.

  • http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NonDualBibleVerses/ Eric Chaffee

    Terry has raised some valid questions. I’d like to add one more: what if this skit had aired on The Daily Show instead of NPR. Would the reaction be different? (Is the problem MOSTLY about pubic funding, or is there more to it?)

    ~eric.

  • Michael

    It wasn’t NPR. It was an NPR affiliate playing a Public Radio International satire show. Here’s a list of NPR shows and “Fair Game” isn’t one of them

    http://www.npr.org/programs/

    Should NPR do a segment on a “controversial” satirical spot that played on some of its affiliates–but that is not an NPR show? Sure, why not.

  • Scott Summers

    My question is… isn’t this more offensive to fat people than religious people? I mean, if you listen to all three “episodes” of the recipes, they’re just fat jokes. The one that’s causing all the problems mentions Jesus but it seems to this listener like it was just a heightening of the other fat jokes.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    Michael:

    I made the point that this was public radio, not NPR, several times in the post. The question gets LINKED to NPR because it was an NPR affiliate and people always word their bias questions as being about NPR.

    Read the headline and follow all the links.

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    Just got done watching a video segment with Sally Quinn interviewing Christopher Hitchens on why he has contempt for people’s religion. Ok, the discussion is just what you’d think, but my point to the discussion here isn’t that Hitchens, who is brilliant on many subjects but awfully repetitive and tedious on this bugbear, shouldn’t get so much airtime (i could make that argument in the form of a question, but not right now), but it happens at 4 minutes into the 5 minute piece.

    Hitch starts talking about a facet of Mitt Romney’s faith which i disbelieve in almost as much as Hitchens, but when he does, Sally has this unpleasant grin on her face, to which Hitchens responds, and they grin more widely and sneer a bit more, congenially, through to the end. Because, hey, we don’t believe in the silly stuff other people do.

    Now, my perception is that Sally *is* a believer of some sort, and she says so in other parts of this package to Hitchens’ face, reminding him of something she’s clearly told him before, and that he disagrees with. But why the smirk and grin and broad smile over someone else’s faith? That’s the kind of atmosphere, the clubby, in-group stuff over traditional religion, that gets many of us, much more than the stray “uneducated and easily led” canard. It’s a gut feeling that’s based on specific subtle data points, that people like us can be mocked, and it makes them cool, and we . . . well, none of us listen, do we? And if we do, why would we be offended? Go back to your clubhouse, kids, and get away from the door of Skull & Bones or whatever.

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    Nota bene: i know full well that my radio listening day is filled with stuff from PRI, APM, BBC, et alia, but it’s all “NPR” to me and my friends and co-workers. It’s like a postal worker correcting someone in line angrily saying “we are *NOT* part of the federal government.”

    Technically true, but there’s a reason people still see it that way, and ultimately a distinction without a difference.

  • http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NonDualBibleVerses/ Eric Chaffee

    I agree with Jeff — a distinction without a difference — so I’ll ask my question again:what if this skit had aired on The Daily Show instead of Public Radio. Would the reaction be different? (Is the problem MOSTLY about pubic funding, or is there more to it?)

    ~eric.

  • Palladio

    “Can you imagine a public-radio station airing a skit this blunt about, oh, any efforts that Barack Obama may make to reach out to Catholics? Wine, bries, soul food, watermelon and Eucharist? That Hillary Clinton might make to reach out to Muslims? Imagine the humor material lurking there. That John Edwards might make to reach out to Jews?”

    No.

    As for the skit, which you dignify with the word ‘satire,’ it is not only unfunny, it is stupid, bigoted, prejudiced, hateful, and offensive. Bad taste in every significant sense of both words. There is also the possibility it could damage the faith of young people–though I trust they would on the whole see through the cheap and flimsy thing to the questionable motives and dubious intelligence of its makers and broadcasters.

    Why any group identifying itself as journalists, reporters, broadcasters, or media, would wish to air such virulent trash is beyond me.

    They do have, as you say, a right to do that.

    So what?

    Just because Catholic-bashing and Evangelical-bashing are legal does not mean that these disgusting things are moral.

    At least it happened in Utah, to which, apparently, nobody listens, if Romney’s overwhelming defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire is any indication.

    For the record, if you want satire worthy of the name with Catholicism the target, try Father Guido Sarducci or, at a greater level of creation and ambition, Fellini.

  • J. Townsend

    The fact that Huckabee draws this kind of “heat”, just makes me want to vote for him. I didn’t want to a few months back.

  • Martha

    “I can see where the outrage is coming from, but the skit was meant to poke fun at Mike Huckabee’s Southern roots and his problems with obesity.”

    Wow – alienating THREE groups of voters in one go – fat people, Southerners, and Catholics. Way to go, guys!

    So who do NPR think we should vote for? I mean, us dumb fat Catholics (sorry, not Southern, unless Southern Irish counts here?) spend so much of our time stuffing our faces or participating in superstitious rituals that we have neither the time nor the spare brain capacity to figure out What Is Good For Us and so need to be led by the hand.

    Speaking purely as someone who has no vote in the American elections, knows nothing about the candidates, has no preference for one over another, and wouldn’t know Mike Huckabee if I fell over him, this skit makes me want to go out and give him my first, second and third preference votes out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

    It also makes me want to grab whoever wrote this by the scruff of the neck and bash their face against a wall three or four times.

    Ah, well, that’s us Irish for you – drunken, violent and Papist!

  • Glynn Young

    Reminds me of the kind of stuff we used to write in study hall in 9th grade — we thought it was hysterical, but all it did was demonstrate immaturity, ignorance and prejudice.

  • Laura

    I agree with Jeff 100 percent. I listen to NPR all of the time. I grew up on it when my father would listen to it in the car and at home, and I still think some of the shows, especially the ones on the weekend, are great, but you know what? Every time they cover religion, especially Catholicism, I change the channel, and that’s because they do a bad job. I can remember one story in particular, they were doing a story on all things considered about Mother Theador’s biatification, and they interviewed a man who was the offspring of an x-nun and an x-priest. It wasn’t clear if the two parents were layesized from their former vocations or not, but it was clear from the story that they weren’t in good standing with the Church. The son told the story of how his father still said mass in their livingroom and of how sad his parents were because they weren’t accepted by the Church anymore. At the end of the story the son stated that if someone like Mother Theador could become biatified, dispite some objectional things which had gone on in her past, then maybe there was hope for his parents. This was the most one-sided thing I’d ever heard. My first questions was, where was the Church’s side in all of this? My second was, what were the things that Mother Theador did which the Church objected too, and why not put in there that she must have been ultimately obeedient because the Church biatified her, where was that information? It wasn’t there because the reporter wanted to whine about how mean the Church was to this nice family. I could go on with stories like this, but I don’t need to.

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    The joke, which isn’t funny, touches on all sorts of interesting frictions between evangelicals and Catholics. I guess my question is if people would be so outraged and up-in-arms if this skit had aired on a “conservative” talk show instead of “godless” public radio. Would there be uproar, or would people let it slide as a poorly written joke? I think, to a certain extent, that “progressive” news outlets get more heat in this area, I have heard some pretty “sketchy” things said on conservative evangelical and Catholic radio stations about “outsider” faiths.

    Also, let me second tmatt’s assertion that NPR, and public radio, has a lot of excellent religion coverage. Has anyone listened PRI-syndicated programs like “The Story” and “Speaking of Faith”? They certainly don’t fit into the “religion-hating” paradigm that many people feel NPR inhabits. Heck, even programs like “This American Life” feature some truly sensitive explorations of faith and religion.

  • Hans

    Martha said

    Wow – alienating THREE groups of voters in one go – fat people, Southerners, and Catholics. Way to go, guys!

    Don’t forget to include us Lutherans (and the Orthodox too) among those alienated. Though we, that is we Lutherans, do not confess transubstantiation, we certainly confess the real presence and thus do not appreciate the mockery one little bit.

    Martha also said

    It also makes me want to grab whoever wrote this by the scruff of the neck and bash their face against a wall three or four times.

    For me, I just want to ask whoever wrote this scruff if they actually think it’s funny or, in any legitimate way, insightful. Perhaps if the religious humor venue doesn’t work out for said writer, he/she can use those brilliant comedy skills to write some stellar poop and retard jokes for Carlos Mencia or Larry the Cable Guy.

  • Peggy

    I don’t listen to NPR. I was amazed when I worked for state govt in Springfield, IL, that about 90% of the workforce were NPR-niks. State employees from every agency filled an auditorium when Michael (?) came down from WISC with his “What Do You Know?” show which was then popular (apparently). I started to listen to his show, but that’s about it. I was just out of college, not quite the NPR age. Grew up on KMOX–talk and Cardinals in STL, MO.

    As to the hostess who’s Catholic herself, I am waiting for, “I went to 12 years…” If it were a man, he’d talk about being an altar boy…Maybe she’s young enough to have been an altar chick? Eminently qualified, no doubt, to spew such stuff!

  • Michael

    And will NPR do a straight national news story about this controversy? Just asking.

    Is it a controversy? Based on what criteria?

    I know you don’t want to talk about the Catholic League, for understandable reasons, but their (or is it, his?) involvement goes to the crux of whether this is really a “controversy” worthy of a national news story.

    Arguably, now that it has become a cause celebre in the Conservative blogosphere, it has merit as a news story. But does a press release sent out by a gadfly organization–whether it be GLAAD, the American Family Association, the Catholic League, or CAIR–really represent a controversy justifying a national news story.

    Good journalism insists that we ask ourselves about the motivations of interest groups who manufacture controversy, and it requires we ask who do they really represent. Does CAIR really represent a cross-section of U.S. Muslims, does GLAAD represent gays, does the Catholic League represent Catholics?

    And who is behind these groups. Is the Catholic League a single guy cranking out press releases or does have have a donor base of millions? The same goes for AFA, which no one seems to know anything about. The same can definitely be asked of GLAAD or CAIR.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    Michael:

    If you are the core NPR listener base, there is no controversy.

    If this is PUBLIC broadcasting, then there is one.

  • Rod

    Well, yes, I understand why Catholics would find this offensive. It’s a sort of uptight way of thinking, where you don’t use the Body of Christ to make a joke. It’s the sort loosenes of talk that the nuns would rap your knuckles with a ruler for in school. Whether it’s actually blashphemous, well, that would be up the the Magisterium to determine.

    It’s the same sort of mentality that makes naming a teddy bear Muhammed blasphemous. Incomprehensible to people who see beyond the particulars but a bad in a strict, by-the-rulebook kind of way.

    Really, what makes the joke funny is the fact that it’s so beyond taste. I’m not even sure I GET the joke but I had to laugh at how shocking it was. Probably not a good sign.

  • Brian

    “It’s the same sort of mentality that makes naming a teddy bear Muhammed blasphemous.”

    What a completely ridiculous thing to say. Have the people involved in making this skit had to go into hiding for fear of their lives, and will they have to leave the country? Of course not. Sheesh.

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    What a completely ridiculous thing to say. Have the people involved in making this skit had to go into hiding for fear of their lives, and will they have to leave the country? Of course not. Sheesh.

    Rod didn’t say the ramifications were the same, he said the mentality was the same.

  • Martha

    Michael, if as Bryan Shott says the point of the skit was “to poke fun at Mike Huckabee’s Southern roots and his problems with obesity” (and leaving aside the searing political satire involved in, er, making fun of a candidate because he used to be fat), why on earth did they drag in the specifically Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation?

    Why not make jokes about him, I dunno, eating deep-fried raccoon, if they wanted to poke fun at Southern roots and overeating? Along the lines of the infamous Scottish deep-fried Mars bars?

    The point, it seems to me and many more, was to be sneering about religion – not just to mock Huckabee for his religious background, but to be as offensive about Christianity in general as possible. I don’t think anyone of any Christian background, even if they think we Papists are the spawn of Satan and the Whore of Babylon, would be choking back tears of mirth and slapping their thighs at the hilarity of “Deep-Fried Body of Christ” topped off with “whipped cream and sprinkles” or “heavy gravy and cream puffs”.

    Oh, yeah, gotta love the “goes great with red wine” ending – hey, referring to the Eucharist under both species, to really rub it in! Just in case us rubes didn’t get it!

    Making specific cracks like that is going to generate a response. Tell me the writer didn’t deliberately intend to create this very reaction we’re seeing. I might possibly believe you – if you can also manage to convince me to buy this bridge in New York you’ve got going cheap.

  • Martha

    Jason and Rod, whatever about the mentality of us nutcase religious whackos, you must admit the intent was quite different in the case of the teddybear and in this case.

    The schoolteacher did not intend, in naming a stuffed toy after a child in her class who was named for Mohammed, to be offensive to Islam.

    The writer of this skit, in taking the most sacred rite of the Catholic religion and making remarks that cannot be construed as reverent or even polite, is trying to be offensive to Christians.

    Rod, if this is supposed to be on the level of “how do you unload a truck full of dead babies? with a pitchfork!” jokes, then I’m not impressed. We all heard and told those kind of jokes when we were fourteen. Writers for radio shows aren’t at a more adult level of wit?

  • Brian

    Jason: Sorry, but you don’t get to make comparisons like that and then pretend that you haven’t implied far more than what was actually said. The teddy-bear story was an issue because there was legitimate fear that people were going to get killed. There is absolutely zero corresponding fear for this story.

    Beyond that, do you honestly believe that the mentality that finds something offensive is “the same” as the mentality that someone should be killed for what you find offensive?

    Would you think it legitimate for someone to point out whenever speaking about vegetarians that Hitler was also a vegetarian?

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    us nutcase religious whackos

    Martha, I would postulate that I’m just as “religious” as you are (albeit not Christian), so try to avoid projecting your opinions as to what my attitudes are towards the “whackos”. Many members of my family are good traditionalist Catholic “whackos”, including my father.

    The writer of this skit, in taking the most sacred rite of the Catholic religion and making remarks that cannot be construed as reverent or even polite, is trying to be offensive to Christians.

    Since you aren’t a telepath, or God, I doubt you know what the writer of the skit intended towards the Catholic faith (as tmatt pointed out, the host is a professed Catholic), or Christianity in general. Sometimes, a joke that seems funny on paper, or in your head, falls flat, or offends. There is an old saying: dying is easy, comedy is hard.

    You can either believe this statement:

    She’s Catholic herself, and didn’t mean to poke fun at Jesus.

    Or you can think they are lying, but all signs so far seem to hint that they didn’t intend to insult Catholics. So, and I’m not the one who made the teddy-bear connection, but neither instance of “insult” comprised malicious “intent”. That isn’t to say Catholics shouldn’t be offended, they are free to be offended at whatever offends them, but to assign motive where motive is denied seems somewhat uncharitable.

    Also Martha, I’m curious, you have never heard a Catholic make a joke about transubstantiation before? Never?

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    Jason: Sorry, but you don’t get to make comparisons like that and then pretend that you haven’t implied far more than what was actually said.

    I haven’t made a single comparison in this thread, or implied anything. I was simply clarifying (to my understanding) what Rod was saying. Rod, of course, is free to come to his own defense. Also, for bringing up Hitler, you automatically lose this debate according to Godwin’s law.

  • Brian

    Jason: If you’re determined to be pedantic, change the “you” to “one” in that sentence.

    You also obviously comprehend neither Godwin’s law nor my sentence.

  • Brian

    From Wikipedia:

    Godwin’s law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies) is an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states:

    As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

    Godwin’s law is often cited in online discussions as a caution against the use of inflammatory rhetoric or exaggerated comparisons, and is often conflated with fallacious arguments of the reductio ad Hitlerum form.

    *****

    If you read my post, you will see I made nothing even similar to a comparison to Hitler. In fact, my whole point was “a caution against the use of inflammatory rhetoric or exaggerated comparisons” as employed by Rod and defended by you.

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    You also obviously comprehend neither Godwin’s law nor my sentence.

    One wonders if my lack of comprehension is due to liabilities in the reading, or in the writing? A question for the ages I fear.

  • http://www.draknet.com/proteus Judy Harrow

    I don’t think this will be of comfort to anybody, but Faith Salie is an equal opportunity snark.

    I didn’t happen to hear the particular bad joke being discussed on this thread, but I remember being shocked a couple of months ago by a couple of equally unfunny jokes about Romney’s Mormon affiliation. I probably would have protested that to the station, except that I personally believe that the principle of freedom of expression is too precious to compromise just because somebody’s feelings may get hurt.

  • http://www.wildhunt.org/blog.html Jason Pitzl-Waters

    Brian,

    Beyond that, do you honestly believe that the mentality that finds something offensive is “the same” as the mentality that someone should be killed for what you find offensive?

    I think both groups in this case are coming from a place of being offended by religious transgression. Where I think that American Catholics and Sudanese Muslims differ is in regards to what responses and ramifications they feel are culturally (and religiously) appropriate.

    I don’t think American Catholics and Sudanese Muslims are “the same”, and have never claimed such.

  • MJBubba

    Judy, as an overweight southern Christian, I found the skit to be offensive and stupid. As a Lutheran, I am offended by crude jokes at the expense of both evangelicals and Catholics, having plenty of both in my neighborhood and my family. (And I love to indulge in foods of my southern heritage that, for health reasons, I limit to infrequent occasions.)
    Being offensive and stupid is not a problem; if that draws ratings it will prosper. The issue to me is if the production or broadcasting of such material is subsidized with tax dollars; that is where the controversy gets legs.

  • http://wildfaith.blogspot.com/ Darrell Grizzle

    tmatt wrote,
    “The question gets LINKED to NPR because it was an NPR affiliate and people always word their bias questions as being about NPR.”

    Those biases are perpetuated by inaccurate reporting such as we see in tmatt’s post, which is about a PRI (non-NPR) show yet references NPR 5 times and discusses NPR’s commitment to excellence – and then tmatt claims his post is about public radio, not NPR. If you were doing a story about religion coverage on CBS, would you reference ABC 5 times and excuse it because “it’s all network television”?

  • http://knapsack.blogspot.com Jeff

    Darrell — Saying PRI is entirely separate from NPR and both are discrete from public radio is . . . well, if a story about network television made 5 references to Touchstone Television (series production house largely under the control of the ABC network), and closes with a remark about ABC, is it all really about network TV? Yep.

  • Palladio

    It requires no thinking, uptight or otherwise, to recoil at the bashing going on in the drivel broadcast in Utah.

    I doubt anybody’s feelings are hurt, a non-problem and beside the point.

    Did I miss the graphics earlier today? Now representing the Eucharist etc. alongside of the drivel–has GotReligion got no taste? A perfect coda to a perfect waste of time.

  • Martha

    Well, gee, Jason, when I read someone’s take on “Deep-fried Christ”, I sorta kinda get a certain impression about how they intended it to sound.

    Let’s try a bit of substitution, huh?

    “Huckabee eats deep-fried Buddhists”

    “Huckabee eats deep-fried women”

    “Huckabee eats deep-fried rats”

    “Huckabee eats deep-fried Bibles” (now, if they’d gone with that one, it would still have been in poor taste, but at least within galactic-core distance of being funny – and more apposite when mocking an evangelical)

    “Huckabee eats deep-fried Torahs” – oh yeah, I wanna hear a writer coming out with *that* one. I really, really do. Try telling observant Jews that hey, I wasn’t attacking Judaism, I was laughing at the fat guy and I only mentioned the Torah because, er, um ….

  • tmatt

    Palladio:

    The second image is wine and bries, that is all. See the reference now?

    And, folks, please stop shouting at each other and write about the issues in the post.

    Also, please note again that the post is about public radio and links to “the whole NPR universe” as a way of noting that people conflate the two — since the stations that carry the programs are NPR affiliates.

  • http://www.draknet.com/proteus Judy Harrow

    Dear MJ Bubba

    I am a Pagan, live in New Jersey, and wear a size 6. I still found that joke offensive, as I did Salie’s earlier jokes about Mormonism.

    I don’t see why you and others need to justify your offense at the tasteless joke by your affiliation with one or more of the groups it targets. This kind of joke is stupid, tasteless, and, on some level, just plain wrong.

    For that matter, so were the infamous Muhammad cartoons of a couple of years ago, but the violent reaction made me go out and buy a Danish flag for my porch (and I am not of Danish heritage, either).

    What I’m saying is that interference with freedom of expression is even more wrong, and much more dangerous that tasteless, stupid, or even bigoted jokes.

  • Brian Walden

    The host is a friend of mine — and she’s really upset that this is the reaction. She’s Catholic herself, and didn’t mean to poke fun at Jesus.

    Catholics are the worst anti-Catholics. The fact that the host of the show is Catholic makes it even more offensive. She knows full well what the Eucharist is to Catholics and Orthodox; that the Eucharist is the source and summit of life – God Himself. It’s sounds like she doesn’t personally believe in the Real Presence, but she knows what the Eucharist means to the faithful and still participated in the skit.

  • Ken

    Don Imus is the comparison that comes to my mind, except that he offended a protected class and, justifiably, paid the price. There is one significant different: he picked on college kids and it’s fundamentally wrong to pick on kids. As a middle-aged Catholic, I just roll my eyes and move on.

    But if it had at least been funny. Unfortunately, it’s more like a 14 year old boy giggling over dirty words or the Sears catalog. Or, at best, a college sophomore trying to shock the grown-ups. Is that picking on kids? I hope not.

  • mjbubba

    Judy,
    I suppose I noted my affiliations to make the point that I found the material to be personally offensive, and not just offensive in principal. I also think I can recognize when something is offensive even when I am not so directly targeted by the offensive material.
    I am all in favor of freedom of expression, but when it comes via public radio, I wonder why taxpayers need to be subsidizing crude and offensive content. This is less an issue than it used to be, as decreasing portions of their budgets come from public sources.
    I admit I conflate public radio, NPR, and PRI, since they come together at the same station, and do so in all of the cities where I have listened. I also get the BBC from the same source, but they sound different.
    I like public radio, I especially like Morning Edition, and I think they do a great job, and they sincerely try to fairly include coverage of the religious dimension of political and cultural issues, and they cover expressly religious topics with a sincere attempt to accurately present both sides. However, many times even their good work sounds “like anthropologists among the natives.” I get the idea that they like religious people, just so long as no one wants to claim that their truth is the only truth. This comes through in ways similar to their liberal bias. They really, really try to be objective, but still come up short, often because they just don’t get it. I believe that, in this regard, religion and politics are related, as with the “pew gap.”
    Pardon me for generalizing, but I am sure my cyberfriends at GetReligion.org could probably cite many specifics.

  • Palladio

    tmatt:

    There are two graphics; of course, I was referring to the first one, which is, I repeat, in poor taste, for the reason I stated.

    Don’t you see that reason?

    If not, I again question your taste.

    If not, may I point out that it has the unavoidable effect of echoing the know-nothingism and spastic bashing of the piece–or whatever we should call it–your own work is supposed to be covering.

    By the way, you are also in error: the Catholic League, though it has already weighed in, is not the link to the story, Catholic Online is.

  • http://www.fatimashrine.com Rev. Peter M. Calabrese, CRSP

    From an overall cultural perspective the problem is with the skit itself. It is a blasphemous attack on a fundamental core belief of a major religious of the country. As satire it is not even healthy satire. It provokes Know-Nothingism.
    If it was on HBO or any other show as a private entity the force of the protest could have less judicial effect. Whether PRI or NPR originated the show the fact is it is aired by a flow of money that receives public funding. No one should have their faith gratuitously desecrated AND be forced to pay for it.
    This isn’t even a skit that lampoons or exaggerates a fault or mistake or sin of given priests or bishops or the Popes. It is not even a satire a public policy position taken by the Church. It is a simple outright blasphemy of a purely religious doctrine held for 2000 years by Catholics. Orthodox wouldn’t use the word transubstantiation but would agree with the end meaning.
    Faith Salie is a Rhodes scholar and, according to the News Director at the Salt Lake station, also a Catholic. She knew what she was doing and PRI and NPR allowed this anti-Catholic attack to go on. The station aired it. Rush Limbaugh was fired for less. NPR must drop its affiliation with Fair Game. NPR and KPMC must be held accountable.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    Father Peter:

    First of all, I assume you mean Don Imus (in the reference to a talk show jock being fired).

    I do not think the national NPR structure is to blame, at all, for what this show did. It really is a PRI to the local station situation. The station had every right to air the sketch, but people also have the right to take them to task for it.

    Again, I raised the NPR question because the whole NPR universe is seen by the public as one body of work. And I linked this to the many questions I get about whether GetReligion considers “NPR” to be hopelessly liberal.

  • Martha

    You want discussion of the issues in the post? Fine.

    I don’t have any assumptions one way or another about American public radio, its politics, its biases or whatever.

    I would like to know why a skit satirising a politician felt it necessary to mention a specifically Roman Catholic doctrine when the man in question is a Baptist (so I understand).

    I could understand taking a pop at him on the basis of religion because everything a politician running for office uses as campaign material is fair game, and if he’s using his religious background and values to attract voters, then the comedy writers are going to use that.

    But why refer to the Eucharist? I don’t know anything about Baptist theology of the Lord’s Supper, but I’m pretty sure (going on general impressions) that they don’t share the same view of it as Catholicism.

    To make matters muddier, the explanation offered is “the skit was meant to poke fun at Mike Huckabee’s Southern roots and his problems with obesity”. No mention of “being a Bible-believing Christian is part of the Southern roots and his public image, so we went for that too”. No explanation of “We used Catholic terms when slagging off a Baptist because…”.

    I have to accept that the radio station had no control over, or knowledge of, what the content was – “We don’t originate the show. We don’t have an editorial control.” – (I’m surprised by this, because really – they routinely air stuff they have no idea what it’s about? suppose the content had been jokes about lynchings? or swearing? they’d have played it without checking first?) but okay, if that’s what they say, that’s what they do.

    I would like to see some kind of answer as to why the writer or writers of this skit thought being irreverent about the Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstatiation in the context of the Eucharist is appropriate when being humorous at the expense of a Baptist.

  • MJBubba

    Martha, that is why we characterized the skit as both offensive and stupid.

  • Jennifer

    I tend to agree with Martha that the joke mangled religious references by implying that Mike Huckabee’s religious rituals are the same as those of a Roman Catholic. As a Southern Baptist who has actually attended church with Huckabee, I can tell you that a Baptist version of Communion (we call it the Lord’s Supper) involves a little square cracker, grape juice (not wine), and a hymn, with no mention of the words “Eucharist” or “transubstantiation” anywhere in the service.

    To me, the issue, again, is that these people don’t get religion. They’re trying to throw Southern Baptists in the same boat with Catholics because they figure that all religious rituals must be the same, right? I think they unintentially offended Catholics while Southern Baptists were left scratching their heads at the inaccuracy of the entire reference.

    I recognized the reference to Huckabee’s wife and kids as a joke about the family’s general problems with weight. Although Huckabee lost over 100 pounds several years ago, liberal bloggers like to poke fun at a Christmas card photo (I’m not sure of the photo’s date, but I think it’s around 1998 or 1999). I inferred that the line about the boys eating theirs with gravy and cream puffs was a reference to that Christmas card photo.

  • Palladio

    Following upon the spirit of Martha’s post, and looking way back at J. Townsend’s, I’ll say this: the stupid conflation of Huck’s faith and the RCC–mine–yields one interesting piece of evidence. Upholding traditional Biblical morality turns the two into one target. This is a good thing because it speaks to greater community and the fear of the godless of that community. If Huck is, stricto sensu, evangelical, no closer ally to the RCC exists, as the historic Christian churches split ever more and look like anything but the Church Christ Himself founded. Evangelicals should unite with Catholics to support Huck at least because he has the best pro-life record of any of them. De facto, they, like many Christian conservatives, already are.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    The skit proves that what I have been saying about Huckabee (and even Romney) being far more “Catholic” than most so-called Democratic Party Catholic politicians are scares the “BeJesus!!” out of liberals. They cannot let Evangelicals and Catholics and Mormons forget their doctrinal differences for fear they will unite on issues in the public square that they all agree on.
    And, of course, any in-depth reporting (or skits) in the liberal MSM
    on the moral or public issues ties that unite these groups must be avoided at all costs lest liberals be swamped by unity among those who believe the direction liberals are taking our society on bed-rock family issues is a recipe for disaster, destruction, and oblivion.

  • Julia

    First of all, I assume you mean Don Imus

    No, I’m sure Father meant Rush Limbaugh who was fired from his job as a color commentator for Monday Night Football for opining that sports media was making such a fuss over a quarterback because he was black. Imus was fired for gratuitously insulting young girls’ supposed ethnic looks. Rush was fired for analyzing press coverage of an adult professional football player.

    Palladio: Thanks for reminding me of the incomparable Father Guido Sarducci. Here’s a link to him pontificating on the meaning of life. Now that’s funny.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AKvRvL5r3A

    By the way, I have given a number of amateur performances of Midnight Catechism at Catholic events, giving out glow-in-the-dark rosaries as prizes. Catholics do have a sense of humor and can tell the difference between satire and ignorant tripe meant to shock.

    Also Martha, I’m curious, you have never heard a Catholic make a joke about transubstantiation before? Never?

    Never from a practicing Catholic, but from “recovering” Catholics – yes. Catholic is not an ethnicity – if a person is no longer practicing the faith, the person is no longer a Catholic – even if the person was “raised Catholic”.

  • Palladio

    Julia, the link to the good Father did not work, but I found he has his own ‘official website:’ http://www.fathersarducci.com/. Let Catholics visit it to get the bad taste out of our systems infected by left loons and a lapsed believer.

  • Ken

    I think the Monday Night Football reference was to Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, but Rush Limbaugh rings a bell.

    I’m still trying to figure out why this skit offends me, but Tom Lehrer’s Vatican Rag doesn’t. Partly becuase the latter is funny.

  • Chris Bolinger

    Limbaugh resigned (under pressure) from ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown pregame show over his controversial statements regarding Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb:
    http://espn.go.com/gen/news/2003/1001/1628537.html

  • Julia

    Ken said

    I’m still trying to figure out why this skit offends me, but Tom Lehrer’s Vatican Rag doesn’t. Partly becuase the latter is funny.

    Probably because the relevant words from that hysterical song

    Drink the wine and chew the wafer
    Two, four, six, eight
    Time to transubstantiate

    source: http://www.turoks.net/Cabana/VaticanRag.htm

    don’t blaspheme Christ Himself as in the radio skit

    Deep-Fried Body of Christ — boring holy wafers no more. Take one Eucharist. Preferably post transubstantiation. Deep-fry in fat, not vegetable oil, ladies, until crispy. Serve piping hot. Mike likes to top his Christ with whipped cream and sprinkles. But his wife Janet and the boys like theirs with heavy gravy and cream puffs

    Even if you don’t believe in Transubstantiation, that’s vile. It’s beyond Life of Brian or “Every Sperm is Sacred” from The Meaning of Life , neither of which made fun of Christ Himself.

  • Pingback: Radio Skit mocks Catholic Christians. « Wayward Fundamentalist Christian

  • http://religionblog.dallasnews.com Bruce Tomaso

    This “satire” may or may be in poor taste. (I would say it is, and my standards in this regard are fairly lax — I love Sarah Silverman, Sandra Bernhard, Baron Sasha Cohen, Lewis Black, the late, great Richard Pryor, and lots of other comedians whose work makes plenty of people uncomfortable.)

    But it unquestionably commits the worst sin in comedy: It’s unfunny.

    Using Holy Communion to make fun of Huckabee, a Southern Baptist, is as nonsensical as joking about Muslims’ not eating burgers because they believe cows are sacred.

    You hit it on the head, tmatt: “a stupid skit that gives us insight into what a very, very small number of people in public radio think is funny.”