By Tom Deignan

A few seasons back, an episode of the animated Fox TV series The Simpsons was set during a St. Patrick’s Day parade.

As you can imagine, there was all sorts of potentially offensive material. There was a drunken Irish author float populated by a dozen James Joyce look-alikes.

At one point a TV anchorman says St. Patrick’s Day   is the day “when everyone is a little bit Irish. Except,    of course, for the gays and the Italians.”

Then there was a brawling bunch of drunks who overtook the TV booth where the anchorman sat.

“All this drinking and violence,” the anchorman intoned seriously. “Are these really the things we think about when we think of the Irish?”

The joke could have stopped there. Hah hah, we get it, a few people actually do drink and fight on St. Patrick’s Day.

But what makes The Simpsons so funny — and popular — is that they don’t settle for easy jokes. And so, after the anchorman’s comment about the Irish association with violence, the very next scene was that of a British pub blowing up.

Ouch!

Anyway, all this came to my mind this week when I began to read that an episode of The Simpsons which aired earlier this month had gotten some Irish folks up in arms.

On May 15, Homer, Bart and the rest of the family converted to Catholicism. They had always worshipped at a sort of nondescript Protestant church. But Irish Father Sean (the voice of Irish Hollywood superstar Liam Neeson) convinces the family that the Catholic route is the way to go.

As Homer put it, “Catholics rule! We’ve got Boston, South America and the good part of Ireland.”

That may actually hurt more than the scene of the British pub blowing up.

To The Simpsons’ credit, however, the show has always been an equal opportunity offender. Everyone gets made fun of.

But the complaints about this recent episode still came. It turns out some Irish Protestants are offended.

Why? Well, Catholic heaven in the episode is depicted more or less as a raucous Irish bar, complete with Riverdance accessories.

Protestant heaven, however, is downright dull. It’s a bastion of elitism where people play croquet and badminton.

Gordon Linney, the former Church of Ireland archdeacon of Dublin, took issue with this, albeit moderately.

In the London Sunday Times he was quoted as saying, “I found the depiction of the Protestant heaven hugely offensive; it made us sound boring. The Catholics were having much more fun.

“It is wrong for anyone to set out intentionally to cause offense, especially in religious matters, but sometimes religious people take themselves far too seriously and take offense too easily. We have survived trouble and strife for over 2,000 years, so we’re not going to get upset about a cartoon.”

But there was one aspect of the episode which did offend Linney.

“What did upset me is the American stereotype that Ireland is 100% Catholic,” he said. “It’s not; 25% of the population is Protestant and the Americans should bear that in mind when they mock the Irish on screen singing for a united Ireland.”

For now, Irish Catholics do not seem offended.

“If The Simpsons episode helps to portray heaven as a happy place, I have no problem with it,” said Father Michael MacGreil, the chairman of the Irish Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, in the Times.”

“The real Heaven, according to Catholicism, is seeing God’s face and beauty in the presence of the saints. Nobody on earth could imagine what that is like. I wouldn’t take any notice of the Irish stereotypes.”

“The Irish are a jovial people and emotionally expressive, and let’s just say that other religions and peoples are more reserved. But we should remember that a sober heaven can be very jolly too.”

What’s perhaps worth noting here is that The Simpsons deserves credit for making religion — all religions — a central part of the show. An academic book was even written about the prevalence of spiritual themes in the show.

But, if you still think the show’s treatment of the Irish and Catholics is in poor taste, and that a Catholic native of “the bad part of Ireland” such as Neeson should not appear in such a show, consider this — this episode of The Simpsons was actually supposed to air last month.

But it was postponed. Why? Out of respect for the death of Pope John Paul II.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)