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Commercial featuring nuns taking potato chips for communion sparks outrage in Italy

Rome (CNN) — A potato chip commercial that features nuns receiving the crispy snacks for communion is “blasphemy” and should be taken off the air, according to an Italian Catholic organization.

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By
Barbie Latza Nadeau
, CNN
CNN — Rome (CNN) — A potato chip commercial that features nuns receiving the crispy snacks for communion is “blasphemy” and should be taken off the air, according to an Italian Catholic organization.

The spot by Amica Chips features doe-eyed young nuns inside a convent delighting that their communion wafer, known as the host, is actually a potato chip.

A mother superior figure looks on as the nuns giggle, and it is revealed that it was her that substituted the hosts for potato chips in the box where communion wafers are kept, called a tabernacle.

Catholics believe the communion wafer represents the body and blood of Christ.

Giovanni Baggio, the head of AIART, a Catholic group that monitors Italian radio and television, called the ad “blasphemy.”

In a statement, Baggio said the 30-second commercial was “outrageous” and that it “offends the sensitivity of millions of practicing 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.”

Likewise, social media users reacted in horror.

“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.”

One user said Amica Chips had “offended all the Catholics of the world,” and another accused the company of “a very serious lack of respect.”

Amica Chips did not reply to a request for comment.

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