Homer is catholic - Official!

While the Church of the Latter Day Saints cheerfully claims the dead retrospectively by baptising them into their church, I’ not sure that it has ever gone as far as claiming a cartoon character as on of its own.

But it would seem that the Catholic Church considers Homer Simpson to be a good catholic boy… According to the Telegraph the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily paper, caries an article headlined "Homer and Bart are Catholics:

"The Simpsons are among the few TV programmes for children in which Christian faith, religion, and questions about God are recurrent themes," according to the article."The family "recites prayers before meals and, in their own peculiar way, believes in the life thereafter".

It quoted an analysis by a Jesuit priest, Father Francesco Occhetta, of a 2005 episode of The Simpsons, The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star, which revolved around Catholicism and was aired a few weeks after the death of Pope John Paul II.

The episode starts with Bart being expelled from Springfield Elementary School and being enrolled in a Catholic school where he meets a sympathetic priest, voiced by the actor Liam Neeson, who draws him into Catholicism with his kindness.

Well there you go. I shudder to think what Fr Occhetta would have thought if he had seen the episode where Marge and Homer get addicted to sex in public places!