The sacrament of Holy Communion is something the Catholic church takes seriously.
And when a video was posted on Thursday of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) feeding a podcaster a Dorito in the style one receives the Eucharist, the Catholic League quickly voiced its disapproval.
“Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer insulted Catholics nationwide when she intentionally ridiculed the Eucharist in a video,” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement, per The Hill.
“There is no way to understand this stunt other than as an expression of vintage anti-Catholic bigotry. Whitmer’s team, and her allies in the media, are trying to distort what she did,” he added.
The video shows podcaster Liz Plank kneeling as she was fed a Dorito. The camera then pans over to Whitmer as she wears Harris-Walz campaign gear.
The song “Dilemma,” by Nelly and Kelly Rowland, is played in the background.
Videos showing a similar dynamic of people being fed have been popular on TikTok.
“If he won’t, Gretchen Whitmer will,” Plank wrote on the Instagram post, tying the video to legislation known as the CHIPS Act, which should boost the U.S. semiconductor sector.
“Chips aren’t just delicious, the CHIPS Act is a game-changer for U.S. tech and manufacturing, boosting domestic production of semiconductors to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers! Donald Trump would put that at risk,” Plank wrote.
Donohue ridiculed the notion the post was in support of semiconductor legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden.
“There are indeed many clips of people feeding each other on social media, but there is no reference to the CHIPS Act, nor are they eating chips. The typical video on Tik Tok shows one person sitting at a table, often in a restaurant, being fed—usually with a fork or spoon—by a friend,” he said.
“None of them are kneeling. None of them are receiving food on the tongue,” he continued. “What Whitmer did was to deride Holy Communion. There is no wiggle room for her to deny the obvious.”
Helene Hare, a spokeswoman for Whitmer’s Fight Like Hell PAC, said that was not the intent of the video.
“The governor’s social media is well known for infusing her communications with pop culture,” Hare wrote in a statement.
“This popular trend has been used by countless people, including Billie Eilish to Kylie Jenner to Stephen Colbert, and the fact that people are paying attention to a video promoting President Biden’s CHIPS Act proves it’s working,” she said.
“Republicans want to distract from the fact that Democrats have invested billions of dollars into local economies to create a record number of jobs and bring supply chains back from overseas, while Donald Trump’s policies would kill these jobs and send them back to China,” she added.
