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CBC Caught in Lie Trying to Squirm out of Charges of Anti-Catholic Bigotry

By Gudrun Schultz

TORONTO, Canada, May 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation independently approved a recently-aired anti-Catholic comedy that offended Catholics by depicting the Communion host as snack food, according to a spokesperson for Canadian Television Fund.

CBC denied approving the controversial pilot show of The Altar Boy Gang that ran May 11, which mocked the Catholic sacraments of Holy Communion and Confession. A public outcry following the show’s airing led CBC Television’s executive vice-president Richard Stursberg to send a letter to the National Post defending the CBC, in response to an editorial in the paper condemning the anti-Catholic bias.

While saying the CBC agreed with the Post that The Altar Boy Gang was “unlikely to appeal to audiences,” Stursberg claimed the broadcaster was forced to run the pilot episode of the show.

“Unfortunately, because the pilot was financed with public funding, including tax credits and Canadian Television Fund (CTF) monies, we were required to put it on air,” Stursberg wrote.

“Had we decided to turn the pilot into a series, we would have followed the same process we did when developing Little Mosque on the Prairie and worked with a consultant to ensure religious practices were treated sensitively.”

CTF, however, said broadcasters were not required to air programs against their discretion. Communications director MaryBeth McKenzie said CBC would have been fully aware of what was in the program and would have approved the script prior to production, in an interview published on CanadianChristianity.ca.

“It’s the broadcaster that determines what kind of program they want to support and air,” she said in a telephone interview from Toronto. Broadcasters abide by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics, which prohibits “abusive or unduly discriminatory material or comment”, she said.

Two Conservative Members of Parliament have said they want the CBC to answer to a  House committee for The Altar Boy Gang. MPs Brad Trost and Andrew Scheer promised to send letters of complaint to CBC officials and to request support from MPs of all parties in bringing CBC officials before the Heritage Committee.

“To depict the communion host, something so sacred, in this fashion, is an extreme act of sacrilege,” wrote Scheer, a Catholic, in a news release May 16.

"The Holy Eucharist is sacred to millions of Catholics across Canada and around the world," said Trost, pointing out that the CBC has a history of airing anti-Catholic material--in an episode of the program Our Daily Bread, comedian Mary Walsh fed a consecrated host to a dog.

See coverage from Canadian Christianity:
http://www.canadianchristianity.com/nationalupdates/070524cbc.html

See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:

CBC TV Offends Catholics with Show Mocking Sacraments in “The Altar Boy Gang”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/may/07051601.html

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