Maher Poops on the Pope

What’s up with Catholics calling for the resignation, though preferably termination, of popular HBO show host Bill Maher?

Well, the host of HBO’s show “Real Time” made a rather engaging comment on his live April 11 show in which he blatantly called Pope Benedict XVI a former Nazi. Maher criticized the aged religious leader for having once been a member of Hitler Youth. The Pope maintains he was forced to join the group as a young boy and that he eventually fled from its members.

Maher also criticized the Catholic Church for the special treatment it received after many sexual scandals surfaced between Catholic priests and young boys.

Maher said:

"If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you 'pope.' "

While Maher’s comments were received with comedic responses, many Catholic viewers have responded negatively to HBO, claiming Maher’s comments were blasphemous and insulting.

Maher responded to protests with a public apology on his April 18 show, though many believe he has only further perpetuated his joke from a week before. He jokingly told viewers that he now understands he cannot, and will never again, make “the pope is a Nazi” joke.

While he could have simply ended the so-called “apology” there, Maher went on to say:

“[…] it distracts from the main point. And the main point I was making was that if the pope, instead of a religious figure, was the CEO of a chain of nationwide day care centers who had thousands of employees who had been caught molesting children and then covering it up, he would have been in jail.”

President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Bill Donohue, replied:

"We accept Maher's apology for accusing the pope of being a Nazi. Too bad he didn't stop there. For him to suggest that Pope Benedict XVI was in charge of policing molesters, and failed in doing so, is patently absurd.”

Personally, I think Catholics should really just get over it already. Maher has a right, just like every American, to express his opinion. He wasn’t advocating anything terrible, simply his views on what has proven to be one of the most controversial topics from the 21^st century: namely, the sexual scandals surrounding the Catholic Church.

I don’t think Maher should be fired for being able to turn a terrible historical truth into a laughable opinion. Nothing he said, except for his opinion on the Pope’s Nazism, could be proven false. In fact, I agree with Maher on the Pope’s outfits. Totally unfashionable.