In Italy, a blasphemous commercial showing a priest handing out popato chips instead of Eucharistic wafers has been taken off the air.
Newsroom (13/04/2024 12:03, Gaudium Press) The Italian Association of Radio and Television Listeners (AIART) has called for the immediate suspension of a commercial aired by the Italian company Amica Chips on Monday, as it offends “the religious sensibility of millions of practicing Catholics” and is “outrageous” because it “trivializes the comparison between the potato chip and the consecrated particle”, […] “showing a lack of respect and creativity”.
The commercial for Amica Chips – one of Italy’s leading potato chip brands – showed a monastery of nuns preparing to receive Holy Communion. A priest was distributing the “communion”, and the nuns were surprised to see that it was potato chips. Meanwhile, the superior looked on nonchalantly, munching on a bag of potato chips. As the ambo was empty before Mass, the superior had added chips in it instead of communion wafers.
The commercial showed a “lack of respect and creativity”, AIART said this week, arguing that the ad was a “telling sign of disrespect for users, their cultural and moral identity, and their dignity as people”.
Last Tuesday, AIART stated on its website that the Institute of Advertising Self-Discipline had complied with its request for the “immediate suspension of the commercial”. Giovanni Baggio, president of AIART, stressed that “moral, civil, and religious convictions should not be offended”.
The Catholic newspaper Avvenire also criticized the commercial, writing in its editorial that “Christ has been reduced to a potato chip. Demoted and vilified as he was two thousand years ago”.
Compiled by Dominic Joseph
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