Still Running Off at the Keyboard

After Showtime, a Viacom company, aired the most obscene attack imaginable on Mother Teresa last May (e.g., she was called Mother F---ing Teresa), we mobilized Catholic bishops, priests, nuns, religious and lay persons to protest. And not without success: the vile episode of 'Penn and Teller' that we objected to, 'Holier Than Thou,' will never air again. That should have been the end of the story, but now Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone has made matters worse.

Redstone's letter reeks with arrogance. Showtime, he says, "frequently airs programs with controversial, differing points of view." So we are supposed to believe that calling nuns 'f---ing c---s' is just a 'differing point of view.' When he says that "we as an organization are committed to artistic freedom," Redstone is being deceitful: CBS is a Viacom holding and CBS refuses to air the reruns of 'Amos and Andy.' So much for artistic freedom.