"Bloody Mary" is the fourteenth episode in the ninth season of the American animated television series South Park.
Meanwhile, outside a church in Bailey, a statue of the Virgin Mary starts to bleed "out its ass" and a cardinal sent by Vatican City declares it to be a miracle.
[1] The episode was aired on December 7, 2005, which is the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic observance related specifically to the Virgin Mary.
[2] Califano did later release a statement calling the episode an "appalling and disgusting portrayal of the Virgin Mary", and pledged to have it reviewed by Viacom's president and CEO, Tom Freston.
Comedy Central responded to e-mail inquiries about the fate of the episode with the assurance that "Bloody Mary" has not been retired and would not be pulled from the DVD release.
[5] On March 14, 2006, Rob Corddry, reporting on Comedy Central's own The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, said: The South Park clips shown while Corddry spoke included several scenes of seemingly offensive material (fornicating cats, a man vomiting and then falling in his own vomit, Butters viewing a man being sodomized, etc.)
New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark issued a statement saying the episode sounded "revolting", but that the network was free to air it.
[12] After receiving 102 formal complaints from viewers, the network issued a statement a month later saying "C4 acknowledges the strength of feeling in relation to the program, and we sincerely apologize for any offense taken".
They also said the episode was "of such a farcical, absurd and unrealistic nature that it did not breach standards of good taste and decency in the context in which it was offered".
[15] In February 2006, Archbishop Denis Hart in Melbourne, Australia wrote to television network SBS asking them not to air the episode.
The network's programming director originally rejected the request, but later decided to postpone the episode citing the controversy over the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons.