A week after ABC began "Nothing Sacred," a television series about a somewhat hip and self-doubting Roman Catholic priest, the show has lost sponsors following a campaign led by a Catholic group.
Two advertisers, American Isuzu Motors and the Weight Watchers International unit of the H.J. Heinz Co., have withdrawn from the show, which has received positive reviews for its portrayal of a handsome priest, played by Kevin Anderson, who is ambivalent about church doctrine on such issues as abortion and celibacy.Lina Webb Carilli, a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, said the company had decided to pull away from "Nothing Sacred" because "we got a tremendous amount of feedback from the public about the show, and we just decided it wasn't necessary for us to be on that program."
An executive at American Isuzu Motors said that after one ad on the show, "There were complaints received."
The pullouts by the advertisers come after several months of criticism from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which says it has 350,000 members. The group has called for a boycott of the show.
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League said Thursday that he hoped the decision by the companies would lead other sponsors to pull out of "Nothing Sacred."
"I have never maintained that the show is anti-Catholic," he said. "But what it says is pure propaganda for Catholic malcontents and those who have an animus against Catholicism. There's a political agenda at work."
David Manson, a co-creator of the show and one of its executive producers, said: "We're not interested in polemics. We're interested in exploring these characters not only in terms of their liturgical function but their humanity and internal lives." He said the controversy was "a tempest in a teapot."
ABC, which is owned by Walt Disney Co., has continually voiced support for the show. But one coming episode, about a priest suffering from AIDS, has been the subject of intense discussion at the network, and questions have arisen about whether this episode will be aired.