May 25, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Shareholders in the media giant, Viacom, will be greeted by many unhappy faces as they enter a meeting at New York’s Marriot Marquis Hotel this afternoon.
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, an organization for religious and civil rights, is leading a charge, railing against the company, and their subsidiary, Showtime, for airing a program which they call “a full frontal assault” on the late Mother Teresa and the Catholic Church.
The program, “Holier than thou”, starring magician entertainers Penn and Teller, paints Mother Theresa and her Sisters of Charity as “cruel, exploitative, self-serving nun[s] who ripped off the poor,” according to Donohue.
“In the 12 years that I have been president of the Catholic League,” he wrote yesterday, “I have never witnessed a more vicious attack on Catholicism than what appeared this week on the Showtime program, ‘Penn and Teller.’ The episode, ‘Holier Than Thou,’ was a frontal assault on Mother Teresa and her order of nuns, Missionaries of Charity (as well as Gandhi and the Dali Lama).”