LONDON (CNS): Catholics in Britain have expressed concerns about plans to broadcast Popetown, a television cartoon program that portrays a corrupt Catholic Church.
Popetown is scheduled to be aired by the BBC in May and is said to feature the Pope as a childish pensioner whose every fickle whim must be indulged. Thousands of Catholics already have written to the BBC to protest.
Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow, Scotland said recently that plans to broadcast Popetown were “socially irresponsible”.
As Britain’s main public service broadcaster, the BBC has a 44 per cent share of radio and TV audiences and is funded by a licence fee system to which all British taxpayers must contribute.
“It is no wonder Britain’s Catholics are saying enough is enough,” Archbishop Conti wrote in the Scottish edition of The Daily Mail newspaper.
David Amess, a Catholic member of Parliament, presented a motion in the House of Commons supporting the archbishop’s comments.
The BBC said that Popetown was a 10-part animated sitcom looking at the daily nuisances that exist in any workplace, except this workplace is the Vatican and the chief executive is the Pope.
