By Michael J. Gaynor
Op/Ed

The National Broadcasting Company is continuing its anti-Catholic ways.

And not even being subtle about it.

Blasphemy is "the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God."

Sacrilege is "gross irreverence toward a hallowed person, place, or thing."

On February 22, NBC broadcast an egregiously insulting episode of the sitcom "Committed,” using consecrated Communion wafers as comic fodder.

In the name of humor, two of the show's characters flushed a Communion wafer down a toilet!

For "good" measure, the show portrayed a priest as a vulgar ignoramus.

For Catholics, that Communion wafer literally is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

For other Christians, it represents the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Priests do know the difference between a Communion wafer and a cracker, and they don't swear when they receive Communion.

Predictably, the "Committed" episode created a firestorm of protest among Catholics.

The Catholic League, a faithful watchdog, reported that during the episode two non-Catholics were mistakenly given Holy Communion at a Catholic funeral Mass and could not figure out a suitable way to deal with the situation.

The Catholic League described the unconscionable episode this way:

"Nate, who is Jewish, and Bowie, a Protestant, don’t know what to do with the Eucharist, so they make several failed attempts to get rid of it. For example, they try slipping it into the pocket of a priest, dropping it on a tray of cheese and crackers, etc.

"At one point, the priest, who is portrayed as not knowing the difference between the Host and a cracker, goes to grab the 'cracker' from a tray of appetizers; he initially balks when he discovers that it is the last one. Then he changes his mind, saying, 'Oh, what the hell.'

"By far the most offensive scene occurs when Nate and Bowie accidentally flush what they think is the Host down the toilet."

Priests don't force Communion on non-Catholics during any kind of Mass.

Catholic League President William Donahue demanded that NBC apologize for "a direct frontal assault on Roman Catholicism, choosing to mock, trivialize and ridicule the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ."

NBC did apologize and agree not to rebroadcast.

But it obviously did not really repent its anti-Catholic ways.

Is NBC reporting on eBay's recent sacrilegious marketing of consecrated Communion wafers?

No.

And the April 24, 2005 edition of NBC's "Meet The Press" deplorably demonstrated that the Catholic Church remains a prime NBC target.

NBC assembled a group to discuss Pope Benedict XVI, formerly known as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

NBC gave its forum to historian Thomas Cahill to denounce the late Pope John Paul the Great for destroying the Catholic Church and appointing "mindless sycophants and incompetents" and "head-in-the-sand yes men" as bishops.

Mr. Cahill has an agenda: he doesn't want Popes to appoint bishops and apparently does want an end to priestly celibacy and a solely male priesthood

Said Mr. Cahill:

"The solution...is to return episcopal election to the people which is where it was in the early church. You could not--if Peter were to rise from beneath his grave in the Vatican and comeupstairs, would not be able to recognize this church as his. In fact, Peter, who was martyred about '63, was certainly not a bishop and he certainly was not bishop of Rome and he's certainly not pope. He was one of the leaders of the early church. The idea of episcopacy in the sense that we now use it really comes into play toward the end of the first century as a response to heresies and the need to create some form of doctrinal order. But it takes almost 2,000 years to put us in the position that we are now in where the papacy or the pope makes all of these appointments so that these bishops are not really bishops of their people. They are simply appointees of the pope. That was never the idea. It really is a theological mistake, and it is responsible for the horrendous scandal in American Catholicism and in many other countries. I refer to the pedophilia scandal. If we had bishops who were not head in the sand yes men, this could have been dealt with, but the pedophilia was bad enough in itself and really had to do with internal psychological immaturities in the celibate clergy but what was much worse was the cover-up which happened--it seems to me that Bernard Law, cardinal cover-up himself, is a perfect example of the mistakes that John Paul II made in his appointments. The people of Boston would never have elected Cardinal Law."

(The people of Boston have regularly voted for John ...