Catholic bishops are calling for parishioners to boycott TV3 and its advertisers if a controversial episode of the cartoon programme Southpark is broadcast on the network's C4 channel.
In almost 10 years on the air, Southpark has taken aim at just about every taboo there is, but now Catholics say it has gone too far in its depiction of the Virgin Mary.
The programme shows Pope Benedict debating the miracle-value of blood coming from a statue of the Virgin Mary.
On Sunday morning a letter from bishops called for the country's 460,000 Catholics to boycott media company Canwest, which plans to air the episode in May.
Outrage in the US stopped a rescreening of the episode and its airing in Australia has been postponed.
Canwest, which runs C4, TV3 and the RadioLive Network still plans to air the episode, saying it meets all its internal standards of taste and decency.
"We don'tbelieve that any group should be dictating the programmes we run. Our C4 viewers have a specific idea of what they want to watch.
"We research that, and if we didn't run it we think we'd be offending those viewers," said Canwest TV Works spokesperson Rick Friesen.
Muslim and Jewish groups have also called for the epsiode to be banned here, further pushing the boundary between religious tolerance and the tolerance of poking fun at religious icons.
