JERUSALEM (RNS) Holy Land Christians are in an uproar over a comedy skit that aired on Israeli television that portrayed the Virgin Mary as promiscuous.

During a Wednesday (Feb. 18) press conference in Nazareth, Christian and Muslim leaders called on Pope Benedict XVI to postpone a May pilgrimage to Israel, the newspaper Ha’aretz reported.

The skit, entitled “Like a Virgin,” was broadcast on a show hosted by Lior Shlein, a popular Israeli comedian. It portrayed the Virgin Mary as a promiscuous woman who denied being a virgin.

“These statements go beyond satire and dark humor. These are serious statements that insult the sensitivities of every Christian and anyone who possess values and mutual respect for other religions,” said Salim Kubti, chairman of an organization representing Christian groups.

On Thursday, the Assembly of the Catholic Bishops in the Holy Land issued a statement that said the spoof included “repulsive attacks on our Lord Jesus Christ and on his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.” The spoof was “an offense” against hundreds of thousands of Christian Israeli citizens, the leaders said, as well as millions of Christians around the world.

The bishops, who are the Catholic Church’s top officials in the Holy Land, said the program’s content was “a symptom of greater problems disturbing the society, such as intolerance, refusal to accept and respect the other and inherent hatred.” They called the incident just one in a series of “continuous attacks against Christians throughout Israel over the years.”

Church leaders cited a case that took place a few months ago, when copies of the New Testament were publicly burned in a yard of an Israeli synagogue.

“Christianity has been doing a lot to stop some manifestations of anti-Semitism, and now Christians in Israel have to find themselves victimized by a low profile manifestation of anti-Christianism?” the bishops asked.

The bishops called on Israeli officials to take “appropriate measures” and demanded that the Channel 10 television network “to acknowledge its responsibility and to officially and publicly apologize” for the incident.

After a Christian umbrella group threatened a lawsuit against the comedian and the network, Shelein sent a letter of apology and promised to apologize on-air.