DATE: Thursday, September 18, 1997          TAG: 9709180082

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Bonko 

                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

SOME ABC SHOWS RILING RELIGIOUS GROUPS

IT WOULDN'T SURPRISE ME if by the end of September, both Protestants and Catholics end up hating Disney, the company that owns ABC.

Disney this month qualifies as an equal-opportunity offender.

The season premiere of ``Ellen,'' scheduled for next Wednesday night on ABC at 9:30, will surely offend millions of righteous, God-fearing viewers - people who quote the verse in the Bible that says homosexuals are among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The first episode of ``Nothing Sacred'' on ABC tonight at 8 is bound to offend some Catholics because it's about a priest who isn't 100 percent sure there is a God, is tempted to have an affair with a woman from his past, and won't flat-out tell his parishioners that it's wrong to have an abortion.

As for prayer, Father Ray wonders who has time for that. ``I have a church to run.''

When it's time to say Mass, he complains about working on weekends. ``Sunday. A day of rest? What a crock.''

DeGeneres in her first ``Ellen'' of the 1997-98 season not only flaunts her lesbianism, and uses it to bag laughs, she glamorizes her lifestyle. Ellen speaking of her old friend Dan: ``He'd be the perfect man if he were a woman.''

Here's Ellen explaining her decision to become a lesbian after dating men: ``My whole men's department was liquidated after years of declining sales.''

DeGeneres is so darn likable, and the writing on this series so darn clever, that it's almost impossible to be galled by what she says and thinks. But some people are bothered.

DeGeneres, ABC and Disney have already felt heat for keeping ``Ellen'' on the schedule after DeGeneres' coming out of the closet episode last season. There was talk of boycotting Disney at a recent Southern Baptist convention.

Now it's somebody else's turn to feel the flame.

Shortly after ``Nothing Sacred'' made the ABC schedule, a spokeswoman for the Catholic League denounced it as ``a very negative portrayal of the priesthood. It's offensive.''

At least one priest in Hampton Roads - the pastor of the Church of the Ascension in Virginia Beach - doesn't see ``Nothing Sacred'' that way.

``It is not a show for those who live sheltered pious lives. It will shock those who see issues of God in terms of black and white,'' said the Rev. Jim Parke.

``I'd change some dialogue to add a little more reverence, but this series is not a blatantly irreverent picture of clergy living real lives in today's world. The series looks promising in many ways.''

When the show's star (Kevin Anderson plays Father Francis Xavier ``Ray'' Rayneaux) and executive producers (David Manson and Richard Kramer) met TV writers in Hollywood recently, their attitude about ``Nothing Sacred'' was: What's the fuss?

``This is a show about a guy and his job,'' Kramer said. ``Instead of an emergency room, legal office or police station, we thought we'd find an interesting new venue for telling stories.''

Controversy? The producers say they wanted none of that.

``This is not a show that is dedicated to be being endlessly embroiled in controversy,'' Kramer said.

Added Manson, ``We tried to create full-blooded, complex, humane, passionate, witty, fallible people. We want to provoke dialogue but not controversy.''

On ``Nothing Sacred,'' the church's business manager is an atheist. There's a dialogue-provoker for you. A nun insists that in church prayers, God be referred to as ``he and she.'' An older priest believes that telling his flock to do good and avoid evil is about all there is to his work.

If that doesn't promote dialogue, this will: Father Ray allows the homeless to sleep on church grounds. He permits transsexuals to change in the soup kitchen's restrooms.

This is life as it is for priests in churches in the inner city, said Anderson, who was born an Irish-Catholic. ``In the past, Hollywood has presented priests as completely perfect or completely evil. This is a show about priests being human.''

``Nothing Sacred'' is as well-crafted, well-acted and well-written as it is unconventional. It's a good TV show. Should it not succeed, the producers will go on to other things. They are thinking about a series in which a hip rabbi who always wanted to be a private eye moves to Las Vegas and . . . ILLUSTRATION: Color ABC photo

Catholics may be offended...

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