RTÉ has apologised for a sketch branded ‘blasphemous’ (Image: RTÉ)
Irish TV channel RTÉ has issued an apology over a section aired as a part of its New Yr’s Eve present that depicted God being arrested on sexual harassment fees.
On Thursday night, RTÉ broadcast a programme counting right down to the brand new 12 months, which included a sketch known as Waterford Whispers Information.
At one level in the course of the section, a police officer is proven main away an actor dressed as God in handcuffs, with the voiceover stating that he had been apprehended for sexual harassment offences.
The sketch obtained tons of of complaints, together with from the Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, who shared his staunch disapproval on Twitter.
Following the criticism the broadcaster obtained, RTÉ printed an apologetic assertion over the controversy.
‘RTÉ acknowledges that a lot of viewers had been offended by parts of the Waterford Whispers sketch section within the RTÉ One New Yr’s Eve countdown programme,’ the assertion learn.
‘RTÉ acknowledges that issues which may trigger offence naturally differ from individual to individual, inside comedy and satire particularly.’
The agency said that after assessing ‘the suggestions and complaints obtained up up to now’, which added as much as round 600 on the time, ‘RTÉ needs to apologise to those that had been offended by the section’.
‘The formal complaints obtained by RTÉ are being entered into our complaints system and might be responded to in accordance with the related statutory course of,’ the assertion added.
In his tweets concerning the clip, the Archbishop of Armagh mentioned he was ‘shocked’ that these in control of the New Yr’s Eve countdown present ‘didn’t realise how deeply offensive’ a ‘mocking “information report” accusing God of rape and reporting his imprisonment’ can be.
‘This outrageous clip needs to be eliminated instantly & denounced by all individuals of goodwill,’ he mentioned.
The archbishop wrote in a second tweet that he discovered the sketch ‘deeply offensive and blasphemous’, along with being ‘insulting to all Catholics and Christians’.
