In the space of one week, four anti-Catholic ads were run in major American newspapers. All of the ads were sponsored by the Eternal Gospel Church of Seventh-Day Adventists (a splinter group from the Seventh-Day Adventists). The ads identify the Catholic Church as the “WHORE” and the “BEAST,” and charge the Holy Father with breaking down the barriers between church and state.
The “Earth’s Final Warning” full-page ads were run on November 28 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; on December 1 they ran in the Miami Herald and its sister paper, El Nuevo Herald; and on December 2, they ran in the Dallas Morning News.
Commenting on this outbreak is Catholic League president William Donohue:
“This is not the first time that we’ve had problems with the anti-Catholic ads run by the Eternal Gospel Church of Seventh-Day Adventists. Our experience has been that when we register our complaint with the publishers of the newspapers which accepted the ads, they prove to be uniformly reasonable. Unfortunately, one of those newspapers, the Miami Herald, is now a repeat offender. But in fairness to this outlet, a new publisher has since been selected for the job. It is our hope that Alberto Ibarquen proves to be as reasonable as his predecessor, David Lawrence; we expect a fair hearing from the other publishers as well.
“Despicable though the ‘Earth’s Final Warning’ ads are, they are not half as disturbing as the decision of newspaper advertising executives to run them. It is not likely that the Klan would find space in a mainstream American newspaper, and the same should be true of the Eternal Gospel Church of the Seventh-Day Adventists. The Catholic League is determined to fight these ads every time they appear and to convince as many publishers as possible as to the impropriety of running them.”
