Church in the World

Fury over Popetown broadcast plans

Germany

The German bishops? conference and leading Catholics in Germany have protested sharply against MTV?s plans to show Popetown in the German-speaking countries on 3 May. The cartoon series of 10 programmes is set in a fictional Vatican. Ruby Wax provides the voice of a wide-eyed pontiff who bounces around the Vatican on a pogo stick.

When MTV published full-page advertisements for Popetown in several German TV magazines in Holy Week, the bishops? conference announced that the advertisements were an ?affront to all German Christians? as they mocked the central message of Christian belief. The bishops? conference intended to ask the advertising council whether such advertisements were in accordance with German law, Fr Hans Langendorfer SJ, the bishops? conference spokesman, said.

Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, Archbishop of Munich, accused MTV of deliberately choosing Holy Week to show the advertisements. ?It is obvious, in view of the recent uproar over the Danish Muhammad caricatures, that the time has come to treat people?s religious beliefs and symbols with greater sensitivity in public,? he said.

The archdiocese of Munich has meanwhile sent MTV an ultimatum through a lawyer, which obliged the station to decide whether to go ahead with the broadcast or face legal proceedings. The archdiocese also welcomed the fact that a member of the conservative CSU party had lodged a complaint against MTV. Jewish and Muslim organisations also criticised MTV?s plans for the broadcast.

The president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Hans Joachim Meyer, said the advertisements were a ?nauseous mockery? and called on all German Catholics to demand that the series and any more plugs for it should be banned.

The Bavarian leader, Edmund Stoiber, told the German daily M?nchner Merkur that he intended to try and change Germany?s blasphemy laws ?in order to protect people?s religious feelings?. Under German law blasphemy is punishable only if it disturbs the public peace. Mr Stoiber said he hoped to get a new law passed by the summer that would make mocking religious symbols a crime and added that he had already discussed the matter with the President of the German bishops? conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, and the leader of the Lutheran Church in Bavaria.

MTV has withdrawn the advertisements, but as The Tablet went to press it still planned to go ahead with the screening on 3 May. ?The series polarises the public and doesn?t appeal to everyone, but it neither disparages nor insults faiths,? an MTV spokeswoman in Berlin said.

Most German media reports have said that the BBC withdrew its plans to show Popetown in Britain after protests by the Catholic Bishops? Conference of England and Wales. Stuart Murphy, controller of BBC Three, the channel that was to broadcast the cartoon, said when he pulled the series that the comic impact of Popetown did ?not outweigh the potential offence it will cause?.
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt in Vienna