ABSTRACT
The success of the comedy series Father Ted, a satire about the Catholic Church in Ireland first broadcast in April 1995 on Britain’s Channel 4, was indicative of the waning influence of a church whose authority had not been questioned by many Irish people up to the twentieth century. The series centred on the eponymous Father Ted, who, after embezzling church funds to pay for a holiday to Las Vegas, is exiled to the grim, isolated Craggy Island, a thinly disguised Ireland, together with a young, dim-witted priest called Father Dougal and an older, violently alcoholic priest called Father Jack. In Episode Three of Series One, entitled “The Passion of St Tibulus”, the priests are ordered by the tyrannical Bishop Brennan to protest against their local cinema’s screening of a film that the Catholic Church has deemed blasphemous. Bishop Brennan explains the need for the protest as follows: https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
Bishop Brennan:
His Holiness has banned it, but because of some loophole the bloody thing is showing on this godforsaken dump.
Father Dougal:
Oh yes, that’s right. Is it any good, do you know?
Bishop Brennan:
I don’t care if it’s any good or not! All I know is that we have to be seen to be making a stand against it.
