Christians have expressed outrage after a television commercial in Italy showed ladies dressed as nuns receiving crispy chips for communion.
According to an Italian Catholic organization, the commercial is “blasphemy” and should be taken off the air.
The commercial by Amica Chips features doe-eyed young nuns inside a convent delighting in that their communion wafer, is actually a potato chip.
A mother superior figure looks on as the nuns laugh, and it is then revealed that it was her (the mother figure) that substituted the communion for potato chips in the box where communion wafers are kept, called a tabernacle.
Giovanni Baggio, the head of AIART, a Catholic group that monitors Italian radio and television, called the ad “blasphemy” as Christians believe the communion wafer represents the body and blood of Christ.
In a statement, Baggio said the 30-second commercial was “outrageous” and that it “offends the sensitivity of millions of practising Catholics by trivializing the comparison between the potato chip and the consecrated object.”
The Catholic newspaper Avvenire also criticized the ad in an editorial: “Christ has been reduced to a potato chip. Debased and vilified like 2,000 years ago.”
Amid the backlash, Italy’s advertising standards authority, the IAP, announced an order for the commercial to be taken off air. Amica Chips has seven days to appeal the decision, during which time broadcasts will continue. The order does not apply to online placements.
Social media users also reacted to the ad.
“This is blasphemy! Respect Our Lord Jesus in the Holy Eucharist!” wrote one Instagram user.
Another said: “You don’t play with God. To my Italian friends, I suggest a total boycott of this company.”
See the ad here.
