Catholics' anger sacriligious at Curb

Hardline American Catholics are up in arms over an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David accidentally pees on a portrait of Jesus.

In the latest installment of his HBO comedy, his character is on a course of vitamins that gives him such a strong stream that he accidentally splashed some onto the painting.

Later David's assistant enters the bathroom, and thinks the portrait is crying, thinking it to be a miracle.

Deal Hudson, a publisher of InsideCatholic.com, said: ‘Why is it that people are allowed to publicly show that level of disrespect for Christian symbols? If the same thing was done to a symbol of any other religions - Jewish or Muslim – there’d be a huge outcry.

‘When is it going to stop? When is common sense going to dictate that people realise this willingness of artists to do to Christianity what they would never do to Judaism or Islam?’

Catholic League president Bill Donohue told Fox News David should quit the series and insinuated the scene was drive by David’s background.

He said: ‘This might be fun to watch, but since HBO only likes to dump on Catholics and David is Jewish, we'll never know.’

But HBO defended the show, saying: ‘Anyone who follows Curb Your Enthusiasm knows that the show is full of parody and satire. Larry David makes fun of everyone, most especially himself. The humor is always playful and certainly never malicious.’

Published: 28 Oct 2009