10 Most Controversial South Park Moments

By season nine, South Park had taken shots at just about any group you could imagine, so an episode featuring a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding out of her backside, and the Pope declaring it a miracle with healing powers, didn’t seem like too much to be concerned about. Naughty, sure, but not a cause for alarm after stuff they’d done up to this point.

This confidence turned out to be unfounded. The episode aired the night before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and the timing, as well as the content, turned out to be enough to light a fire under various Catholic organisations.

In the US, the Catholic League demanded the episode was essentially expunged, and managed to get an apology from the practising Catholic president of Comedy Central’s parent company. In New Zealand, a multi-faith group campaigned against the episode’s airing, which led to an audience six times South Park’s norm.

The episode was removed from Comedy Central schedules for the best part of a year, but has since returned to normal rotation. While this generated more outrage than most episodes, if anything the controversy seemed to boost fan interest.