It being Ash Wednesday, it's time to start 40 days of...

Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

As you might have guessed from the question mark, some of these moments may not qualify as great in the normal sense. And considering that I only have about three-quarters of my list complete, these moments may devolve into an extended biography of our first subject...

November 16, 1976: Fr. Mulcahy performs a tracheotomy using his Tom Mix pocket knife.

Reminded by a patient that he's more at the war than in it, Fr. Mulcahy goes with Radar to an aid station, where he gets a more front-line view of the fighting. When a patient they are bringing back to the 4077 stops breathing due to a constricted airway, Hawkeye talks Mulcahy through a tracheotomy by radio, with the father using his trusty knife and the tube from his bottle of eye drops to get the soldier breathing again.

I always enjoyed the M*A*S*H episodes that were Mulcahy-heavy, and this one is in my top three for him. As a plus, the padre jumped ahead of all those TV doctors who perform the same procedure in hospitals with appropriate equipment, training and support staff. I'd like to see Mark Greene try to open an airway using the stuff in his pockets while assisted by a woozy corporal.