Monday, March 31, 2014

Bishop Sheen Censored





EWTN
5817 Old Leeds Rd.
Irondale, AL 35210
(205) 271- 2900
viewer@ewtn.com

Last week, having fallen asleep watching EWTN,  I woke to the sound of Bishop Sheen's Life is Worth Living [Gloom, Laughter,Humor].  It began with B.Sheen cocking his yarmulke off to the side to get a laugh, and saying he once knew a Bishop who wore his cocked forward to hide the fact he's lost his hair.  Anon, he rued that today we can no longer tell jokes about Jews, Italians, etc.; and what a shame we had lost capacity to make fun of ourselves.

This resonated.  As a kid in Chicago, attending St. Francis Borgia, our homework assignment every Monday was to watch Life is Worth Living. We were grilled the next day by Father Theissen,  lest we had instead played hooky and watched Sid Caesar—like our public school brethren did.

Our parish was a melting pot of Italian, Polish and Irish.  Ethnic humor was a staple; nobody took offense at being lampooned by "Dago" or "Polack" jokes.  Of course, being called a stupid 'Mick" by someone you didn't know was a fighting offense; it was all in the intent. Then came Political Correctness, the movement pushed by educators like Donna Shalala to control speech; but I digress.

I tried to record the audio from the beginning, but was watching (Live Broadcast) on my iPad (using the EWTN app), and couldn't go back.  I checked to see if it was scheduled for repeat, and yes!  Saturday, March 29 at 6PM!  Click-click I scheduled it, and was on hand to watch it live.  Guess what?

In an act of bodacious irony, it seems that somebody at EWTN deemed the "
cannot tell jokes about Jews, Italians, etc" segment inflammatory, and cut it.  You can tell where it was cut because the empty space is filled by replaying the opening "tilting yarmulke" segment.  Not only is it confusing, it's—well, it's cowardly to censor the words of someone as celebrated as Bishop Fulton Sheen in order not to offend the professional offended classes. 

Have I missed something?  I'm hoping this was an unintentional glitch, and the original unedited video will be rescheduled, or at least offered for sale.  I'm blogging this, so I hope to hear a "live" explanation response.

Sincerely .... The Real King of France


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mel Brooks could not possibly have made Blazing Saddles in the current PC environment. Nor could black comediens like Flip Wilson or Richard Pryor make it in today's market. Bill Cosby is in exile for speaking truth to power. I'm not sayin' fire hoses and poll taxes were good, but we have lost something of ourselves in the past couple-three decades and we are N-O-T the better for it.

Sidwit said...

You bunch of PC bullies! Oh, I didn't say that did I? Can I say that or will it offend aggressive overbearing behavior type individuals who like to push around others? What the heck, we need more Carlos Mencia's who will joke about anybody including handicapped people. And tell you to get over it because we are equal.

Post a Comment

Just type your name and post as anonymous if you don't have a Blogger profile.