"Is the Pope Catholic?" is a rhetorical question famously used to facetiously answer a question in the affirmative. "Will a Pope satire offend people in a country where four-fifths of the population is Catholic?" could be its corollary.
Predictably, religious authorities in staunchly Catholic Lithuania have become the latest people to be offended by the scandalous cartoon series "Popetown," which has already raised hackles in New Zealand and Germany. The Lithuanian Roman Catholic Church has said it is planning to sue cable channel MTV Lietuva over the series.
"We are going to lodge a complaint in court because we believe that the rights of the faithful were violated by this mockery," Lithuanian Bishops' Conference President Sigitas Tamkevicius told Reuters this week. "The Popetown series is not only an insult to the pope, but to all the Catholics of Lithuania."
Tamkevicius, who was persecuted by the communist regime as a priest, said he regards MTV Lietuva's airing of the series as an attempt to diminish the role of the Church. He did not say when the complaint would be lodged, however.
His Protestant colleagues also came to his defense. The series was an attack against all Christians, the head of the Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Church, Mindaugas Sabutis, told the Delfi news portal.
The series was commissioned by the BBC in 2002 but dropped two years later over worries it would offend Catholics. The irreverent show depicts the Pope as a plump and childish 77-year-old with an oversized hat who enjoys bouncing along on a cross-shaped pogo stick. In the series, the fictional town of Popetown is run by three corrupt cardinals who spend their days ruminating over how they can become the richest men in the world.
"Mental pollution"
The series sparked protests when it was shown in Germany in 2006. Augsburg Bishop Walter Mixa called the show "mental pollution," while Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber spoke of a "sordid attack on large numbers of people." German Catholic leaders tried to take legal steps to prevent the series from being broadcast, without success.
The series began airing in Lithuania last week, with the second episode broadcast on Wednesday. An earlier request by the Bishops' Conference to postpone the show's debut was rejected.
The channel MTV Lietuva, which is run by MTV Networks Baltic, rejected the view that the series insulted Catholics.
"This is just an artistic satire and nothing more," said Ema Segal, spokeswoman for MTV Lietuva. "We neither attempted to mock the religion, nor God himself."
She added that MTV Lietuva had received positive viewer feedback and plans to air all 10 episodes of the series, which is titled "Popiežiaus miestas" in Lithuanian.
"We expected some protests, but not that sort of outcry," commented Andrius Serva, MTV Lietuva programme director. "We think our audience is wise enough to distinguish between the caricature and the religion."
Around 79 percent of Lithuania's 3.6 million people are Catholic. Lithuania was the last country in Europe to become Christian -- it was pagan up until the 14th century.
dgs/reuters
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