Red Hot Catholic Love
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| South Park episode | |
| "Red Hot Catholic Love" | |
 Priest Maxi has a crisis of faith. |
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| Episode no. | 87 |
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| Airdate | July 3, 2002 |
| South Park - Season 6 March 6, 2002 – December 11, 2002 |
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| ← Season 5 | Season 7 → |
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| List of all South Park episodes | |
"Red Hot Catholic Love" is episode 608 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on July 3, 2002. It was selected #2 of the "10 South Parks that changed the world".
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[edit] Plot synopsis
The episode begins with several of the characters at the South Park Catholic church. Priest Maxi informs them that the Young Men's Catholic Retreat is coming up, which will be a boat ride. Stan thinks it would be fun, but his father Randy has disturbing visions of the Retreat as "The Catholic Boat", (a la Love Boat) involving the priests and young boys.
After church, Randy and the other parents discuss the Retreat and agree that they don't want their kids to go. They also decide to have a counselor talk to the boys, to find out if Priest Maxi had been molesting them. The counselor asks them several questions, culminating in "Did Father Maxi, at any time, ever try to put something in your butt?" The boys have no idea what she is talking about, and later when they meet up with Kyle they all wonder what she could have meant. They ask Chef what she meant, but he (understandably) leaves immediately.
Cartman has a "brilliant" idea. He wonders if perhaps the counselor was talking about food. Cartman reasons that ingesting food through the mouth causes one to defecate through the rectum, so eating through the rectum must cause defecation through the mouth. The other boys (especially Kyle) think it is stupid and disgusting. Cartman bets him $20 it will work.
Meanwhile, all the parents decide to become atheists, as a means of protest to their children being allegedly molested.
Father Maxi has gathered a meeting of Catholic priests to discuss the problem of child molestation. He wants to stop it from happening altogether, while the other priests want to continue molesting the boys, but stop the boys from telling. Maxi decides he has to go to the Vatican.
Cartman stands over a toilet, trying to defecate out of his mouth. All the boys (except for Craig) watch in amazement as he succeeds. Kyle hands over the $20.
Priest Maxi is excited to be at Vatican City, but once inside the Vatican, Maxi finds things are the same: Catholic Priests from all over the world are molesting children. They claim the "Holy Document of Vatican Law" does not prohibit the behavior, so Maxi wants to change the law. The other priests (including an alien from the planet Gelgamek) find this outrageous.
Cartman continually annoys Kyle, rubbing in the fact that he won $20 from him. At home, Stan tells his parents that Cartman shoved food up his butt and crapped out of his mouth. After being skeptical initially, Randy also decides to try it and is amazed when it works.
The Catholics argue that if they cannot molest boys, they cannot get sex as the Holy Document of Vatican Law prohibits priests from marrying. When Maxi suggests they also change that part, the Cardinal tells him that the Document cannot be changed as no one knows where it is. Maxi decides to try and find it. Cartman continues to bother Kyle about winning the $20. Kyle sarcastically replies "So you crapped out of your mouth, do you want a freaking medal?!" The news comes on, stating that Cartman's method of eating is much healthier (with the surgeon general basing that on "absolutely nothing.") For first discovering the new method, Cartman is to receive a "freaking medal." Martha Stewart then prepares a turkey to eat on her cooking show. She places liberal amounts of lubricant and wraps it to narrow it up. As she is hiking the turkey up her skirt, the FBI shows up. When one of the FBI agents says they'd like to ask Ms. Stewart a few questions, she replies, "Not right now, I just want to focus on my turkey...right now", an obvious parody of her famous response to being questioned about her involvement in an insider trading scandal in 2002.
Maxi is searching through the lower levels of the Vatican, and goes through a gauntlet (which looks like the video game Pitfall!, complete with videogame noises and trappings) in order to reach the Holy Document. He gets to it and takes it back. The parents are having a dinner together, talking about atheism and shoving food up their butts and defecating out of their mouths.
Now that Maxi has retrieved the Holy Document, he wishes to change it. But the Pope says they must first consult the highest power. He summons the "Queen Spider." The Spider declares that the Holy Document of Vatican Law cannot be changed. Maxi thinks the whole thing is ridiculous, and tears the Document in two. The building begins to crumble.
Cartman has been to the bank again and had the $20 converted into quarters so that he can swim in a pool of Kyle's money. As he does this, Kyle says he accepts that Cartman beat him, which apparently spoils Cartman's sense of victory and he ceases to bother Kyle about it. Then their parents come outside and tell them the Vatican is destroyed.
Maxi stands in front of the ruins, and tells everyone that Catholicism is not about the Holy Document of Vatican Law, molestation, or Queen Spiders, but about being a good person. He says by clouding the moral lessons of the Bible with needless ceremony, the Vatican has caused people to reject religion and argues that "when they have no mythology to live their lives by, they just start spewing a bunch of crap out of their mouths." As he's saying this on live television, Tweek's dad is shown about to defecate out of his mouth into a bucket. The parents realize their mistake and decide to stop shoving food up their butts and start going to church again.
[edit] The Catholic Boat lyrics
The Catholic Boat's gonna be headin' on out today.
The Catholic Boat. Time to throw all your cares away.
Get some hot Christian action; it'll make you gay".
[edit] Trivia
- This episode reveals that almost all of the principal and recurring characters in South Park are Roman Catholic. It also deals with, as well as makes fun of, the Roman Catholic sex abuse cases.
- The name Priest Maxi is a reversal of Maxi Priest, an English reggae singer.
- Priest Maxi says at the end of the show that he loves being Catholic but argues for the primacy of the Bible and against needless ceremony -- an unusual position for a Catholic priest to take, considering the Catholic Church's emphasis on both Scripture and Tradition.
- As the parents are defecating from their mouths, they are ranting about the religious right. Although Stone and Parker both have more libertarian-leaning views and have disdain for socially religious conservatives, this gag shows that they are just as irritated by arguments from the more socially liberal/atheistic/secular types. Stone and Parker explain this in the commentary for this episode.
- The Gelgameks are actually vaginas turned upside down.
[edit] Censorship and Bans
- The syndicated version of this episode edits all the scenes of the characters defecating through their mouth by replacing the offending scenes with a black title card that reads, "The scene in which [character's name] craps from his mouth has been edited out for your protection" while easy-listening music plays in the background (similar editing happened in the syndicated version of the season four episode "Fat Camp" whenever Kenny performed a gross stunt).
- Because of the irreverent religious overtones, this episode has caused a stir with Catholics (similar to "Bloody Mary") and was banned for a year and a half from airing in Australia.
[edit] References to Pop culture
- "The Catholic Boat" is a parody of The Love Boat.
- The great queen spider worshiped as God is a reference to the 1970s Doctor Who serial "Planet of the Spiders."
- The old monk in the St. Peter's catacombs, and especially the line "What do you seek, Father?" is a reference to the Monty Python movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- The scene where Priest Maxi tries to get the Holy Document of Vatican Law is dubbed over footage of the 1982 game Pitfall!
- In the meeting with local priests, the cross on the wall is actually the symbol of the Church of Scientology.
| Preceded by "Simpsons Already Did It" |
South Park episodes | Followed by "Free Hat" |
