CATHOLICS OUTRAGED OVER ISRAELI TV SPOOF

Melbourne Herald Sun
Feb 20 2009
Australia

CATHOLIC bishops in the Holy Land have expressed outrage over what
they call "repulsive attacks" on Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary
after an Israeli TV program spoofed them.

"We, the members of the Assembly of the Catholic Bishops in the Holy
Land deplore and condemn with utter dismay the repulsive attacks on
our lord Jesus Christ and on his mother, the blessed Virgin Mary,
carried out on Channel 10 of the Israeli television," the group said
in a statement.

Earlier this week, the private channel broadcast a series of skits,
one of which suggested the Virgin Mary "was impregnated at the age
of 15 by a school friend."

Another said Jesus died at a young age "because he was fat" and
that his excess weight would have made it impossible for him to walk
on water.

In the program, Israeli comedian Yair Shlein joked that
since Christians "deny the Holocaust, then I want to deny
Christianity." Following protests, he later apologised to Arab Israeli
Christian dignitaries.

The bishops said they viewed "this recent incident in the larger
context of continuous attacks against Christians throughout Israel
over the years" and urged authorities to launch an investigation.

"It is unconceivable that such incidents have to occur in Israel
which hosts some of the holiest shrines of Christianity," said the
statement, signed by the Latin patriach of Jerusalem as well as
Armenian, Chaldean, Greek, Maronite and Syrian Catholic bishops.

Uneasy relations between the Vatican and Israel have been further
strained a by Pope Benedict XVI’s recent decision to lift the
excommunication of Holocaust-denying English Bishop Richard Williamson.

The pontiff is scheduled to visit Israel in May.