Hindus smell greed in Vatican declaring "Simpsons" as Catholics

Nevada (US), Nov 1 (ANI): Hindus have blamed Vatican for mere greed in claiming animated television family "The Simpsons" as Catholics.

Why would Vatican need to enroll a dysfunctional cartoon family into its flock when Roman Catholic numbers were already about 1.17 billion (or about 17.4 percent of world population), eminent Hindu statesman Rajan Zed wondered in a statement in Nevada (USA) today.

A recent edition of "L'Osservatore Romano", 149 years old daily Italian newspaper of the Holy See, declared Homer J. Simpson and his son Bart of the animated cartoon family of American sitcom series "The Simpsons" as Catholics. But Simpsons' executive producer Al Jean later contradicted in the media that Simpsons were not Catholic and instead attended Presbylutheran church.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, further said that claiming fictional cartoon characters from the world of television as your flock was exaggeration, wishful thinking and plain old greed.

So, was this the follow-up to the call of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on World Youth Day in Sydney (Australia) in 2008 of building a greed-free world, Rajan Zed asked?

Zed quoted ancient Hindu scripture, Bhagavad-Gita, which says: there are three gates to self-destructive hell-greed, anger, and desire. Abandon these three. A person freed from these three gates of darkness, seeks what is best and attains life's highest goal.

Created for Fox by Matt Groening, "The Simpsons", longest-running American animated television series comedy in history, debuted in 1989, has reportedly won 27 Emmy Awards and Time magazine named it as the best television series of 20th century. "The Simpson" family reportedly has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Giovanni Maria Vian is the Editor-in-Chief of "L'Osservatore Romano". (ANI)