Bishop John Keenan of Paisley Bishop John Keenan of Paisley has criticised a video on homophobia posted by BBC Scotland in which the Eucharist is parodied, being said to “taste like cardboard” and “smell like hate”.
The video ‘This is how homophobia feels in 2018’ was posted on April 9 on the Facebook page of BBC The Social, a project of BBC Scotland aimed at young people.
The short film was created by Sean Lìonadh, and addresses reactions to a gay couple who are walking in a park. The narrator states that “normality is a crowd-sourced fantasy”, and addresses moral failings of those who view homosexual acts as immoral.
It also depicts a man and a woman who is pregnant, whose “normality” the narrator says will be shattered when the woman suffers a miscarriage.
Lìonadh’s video goes on to say that “Jesus saved a lot of time when he died for our crimes, that he would’ve wasted teaching small minds that love is no sin”.
A vociferous street preacher is then shown, in between scenes of a Mass, in which a priest elevates a cheese biscuit as a parody of a Host, and then distributes it to a kneeling woman, who makes the sign of the cross. The narrator says during this: “See him, he thinks it’s Faith, but under all that din, it tastes like cardboard, and it smells like hate.”
Narration
Bishop Keenan referred to the narration in a Facebook post, saying: “So BBC Scotland has described Holy Communion and Catholics in its latest digital stream for young people in Scotland on homophobia.”
He noted that the video was posted “in a week when a Sunday Times poll found 20% of Catholics reported personally experiencing abuse or prejudice” toward their faith and that recent government figures show that 57% of religiously aggravated crime is directed at Catholics, an increase of 14%.
“And we all wonder why,” the bishop exclaimed.
Scotland has experience significant sectarian division since the Scottish Reformation of the 16th Century, which led to the formation of the Church of Scotland, an ecclesial community in the Calvinist and Presbyterian tradition which is the country’s largest religious community.
Bishop Keenan told the Catholic Herald that the video posted by BBC Scotland “is ridiculing and demeaning the Faith of ordinary Catholics, especially at a time when Catholics are experiencing more and more abuse and prejudice in Scotland”.
“The BBC has to be careful,” he noted. “It has to ask itself if it has ceased to be a broadcaster in the public interest, and is just promoting particular interests. You cannot imagine it treating any other religion like this.”