Crunch Time in the Convent

Advertisement in Italy showing nuns eating crisps in a conventri, has sparked outrage with Catholic viewers calling it blasphemy.

The 30-second ad for her takes place in a convent and opens with nuns preparing to receive Holy Communion to the sound of Ave Maria playing in the background, the nuns heading towards the priest and as the first receives Holy Communion, a chewing sound and shows Abbess enjoying the company’s chips, as reported by The Guardian.

The company that created the ad said that the campaign was aimed at a younger audience “with a strong British irony” and aimed to “project crispness” in an exaggerated way.

A Catholic viewers’ organization called for the ad to be suspended immediately with its president Giovanni Baggio accusing the chip company of co-opting blasphemy to boost sales. He stressed that the ad “offends the sensibilities of millions of Catholics” and was “provocative because it superficially imitates the comparison between potato chips and Holy Communion”.

“The ad shows a lack of respect and creativity,” Banzio added in a statement. “It is a sign of inability to do marketing without resorting to symbols that have nothing to do with consumption and roughness,” he concluded.

The ad was also criticized by the Catholic newspaper, Avvenire, which described it in an article with the phrase “Christ turned into potato chips. Marginalized and slandered like two thousand years ago.”