On his May 16 program, liberal comedian and avowed atheist Bill Maher insulted a holy sacrament of the faith of billions of people worldwide in a disturbingly crude joke involving, essentially, sexually predatory extraterrestrial alien priests [See video below. MP3 audio here].
The occasion for the so-called joke was news that Pope Francis said that in the hypothetical situation that life existed on other planets and an extraterrestrial asked him to be baptized, he would perform the baptismal rite for the alien. “New rule: Don't scare off the aliens before they even get here,” cracked Maher on his Real Time program, adding:
I love you Frank, but that is some Mitt Romney level crazy bulls*** right there. I'm pretty sure any beings advanced enough to travel hundreds of light years, aren't that interested in getting sprinkled with magic water. Besides, given the past history of fondling and groping, the last thing the church needs is a 50-foot priest with six arms.
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League fired back by noting Maher never deploys his acerbic wit at sexual predators in his industry:
Given all the sordid revelations coming out of Hollywood these days, why isn’t Maher turning to the entertainment industry for script material? That, of course, is his backyard, and he won’t do anything to offend his buddies. More important, his real interest is not lampooning sex offenders—it’s berating priests.
Of course, Maher also mocked the sacrament of baptism, claiming no “advanced” “beings” would be dumb enough to set about “getting sprinkled with magic water.”
Such a crack is patently insulting to incredibly intelligent and faithful Catholics in the U.S. and around the world who believe in the miracle which the Church teaches happens at baptism, including, yes, Pope Francis, whom Maher claims to love.
“Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte ‘a new creature,’ an adopted son of God, who has become a ‘partaker of the divine nature,’ member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches.
Given that belief, it’s hardly shocking that the Pope would be more than glad to baptize a strange creature which came to him for that purpose, be he an extraterrestrial alien or even – yes, miracles can happen – a smarmy pay-cable comedian.
