The New York Times ad

The following excerpt came from the Forbes magazine blog on March 11.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation ran an advertisement in the New York Times Friday challenging liberal and nominal Catholics to leave the Church “En Mass”.

The NYT forced FFRF to tone its ad down a bit:

The Times required FFRF to alter its punchy headline, ‘It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church,’ to ‘It’s Time to Consider Quitting the Catholic Church.’

Was the Times worried about the Spanish Inquistion or something ? I mean nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition…

I really thought that FFRF was going over the top rhetorically,

The ad blames the Catholic Church for promoting “acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, overpopulation, social evils and deaths.” It says the bishops are “launching a ruthless political Inquisition” against women.

It talks about “preying priests” and corruption “going all the way to the top.” In an appeal to Catholic women, it opines, “Apparently, you’re like the battered woman who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go.”

Click here for entire story…

READER COMMENTS

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 1:55 AM By ANNE
The ad leaves out the fact that people must be RESPONSIBLE for their own actions. Decisions to have sex outside of marriage is a Mortal Sin. Without sexual mortal sins there would be no “inconvenient” pregnancies, no sexually transmitted desease, no war against women regarding chemically and mechanically harmful birth control (read package warnings). Can this ad be considered “HATE Speech” ?

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 2:50 AM By Papa
This will have no effect on Catholics that are true Catholics, it is garbage, wonder why they don’t go after Muslims to leave their faith because of their barbaric bombings of their own people day after day, who are these people really afraid off???? Catholics tolerate them and pray for them, wonder what the radical Islamics would do, especially when you see how they treat their women, those are the women that need the mighty ffrf to help them with adds in the NYT and Forbes. MGB

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 4:12 AM By Alar
Im Christian and Spanish. Ive studied all my academics in Catholic institutions. And i must agree with that position. Ive been myself involved in projects in NGO helping against poverty in poor countries. And all the efforts are outcome by people surpassing the one child per couple average. Population increase make all the money and efforts near to useless. I have not read the ad, so dont exactly what it says appart from the title. But it is true that poverty will exists unless we fight human overpopulation with education lowering population below 3 billion humans. Im also aware of many other issues arised by overpopulation, a cancer rate of more than 40% and rising, poverty in supposedly developed countries, children not growing in healthy enviroments, crime rising, unemployment, and many other.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 5:07 AM By Juergensen
I agree with the ad, as does Pope Benedict XVI, who has lamented the “filth in the Church” and the need for “a smaller Church.” I propose that, for starters, all unrepentant voters and supporters of the baby butchering antichrist in the White House leave the Church en mass. Instanter.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:07 AM By JLS
Even with the high rates of abortion and contraception, the population of the world is growing. The implication of this fact is that the pitch has not basis, yet it is the rationale used to promote abortion and contraception.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:12 AM By Dan
Actually, I agree with FFRF: it is a great moment of truth for liberal and nominal Catholics. They already deny portions of the faith — why not go “all the way” and simply leave? It just might be that some will consider this a great moment of truth — ponder what’s at stake–and return to the faith.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:30 AM By Ted
The Catholic Church has been a prime target for FFRF since the foundation began. Their antagonistic attitude is no different from the rest of the left, it’s just that they actually say what they believe. They’re just as deserving of being ignored as Bill Maher or Jane Fonda. That’s how they should be dealt with.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:53 AM By FAMG
Anti-Catholic bigotry is alive and well, and American as apple pie!

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:05 AM By MacDonald
I’ll bet you a million dollars this “Freedom From Religion Foundation” would never DARE to put together such an ad against Islam.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:15 AM By Robert Lockwood
Would this administration do this?? You bet they would given the chance. They have proved this time and time again.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:33 AM By JMJ
This is a perfect example of what the Bible says will be a sign of the “end times”: when evil is called good and good is called bad. This sounds like one of Soro’s groups (he has very many), but, thankfully, we have the truth and attacks such as this, will only make us stronger in the faith, for the simple reason, we will have to learn why our Church tells us these things in order to answer our own questions and the question and attacks of others. Come, Lord Jesus, Come. +JMJ+

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:51 AM By Maryanne Leonard
Wow. I don’t feel like a battered woman so much as like a battered Catholic. Jesus told us it wouldn’t be easy to follow him. What these batterers don’t know is that assaults on a group can cause people to band together ever more strongly and often cause others to stand with them in solidarity. All we need is Jesus, but it’s wonderful that we have one another and many others standing with us.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:53 AM By Deninor
How sad! These poor people are blinded by their own hatred for the world’s oldest continuing entity. They offer nothing in return. They want to destroy morality and virtue.They want to swap Catholicism for secular humanism, which always destroys cultures and civilizations.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:11 AM By Ski Ven
They are saying that God is corrupt. I do not envy them.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:25 AM By teepjay
‘Liberal and nominal’ Catholics should follow the suggestion and leave the Church. Better yet, they should be excommunicated. The Church would be far better off without them. But if this ad taps in to their deranged sensibilities, hey, whatever it takes!

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:37 AM By Larry
As a matter of fact, I too would like to invite liberal and nominal Catholics to leave the Church–that is, if they cannot bring themselves to repent and become sincere Catholics (and a great many of them can’t.) That’s the one and only thing upon which I can agree with this group.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:45 AM By Tom Byrne
This is “Maria Monk” stuff. The attitudes have been around since the 1840s and never completely gone away. But what is a modern newspaper doing carrying an ad against the Catholic Church when it would never carry such an ad against any other denomination? Can imagine you the NYT carrying ads against Judaism or Islam?

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:47 AM By Canisius
People please dont be surprised the Times lost legitimacy long ago as a actual newspaper its nothing more than a propoganda sheet for “gay rights’ abortion and the bolshevik left. They hate the Church and Christ, and everything it stands for, my hope is one day it goes completely bankrupt

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:48 AM By Patrick
Guess they never heard of freedom of religion.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 9:26 AM By JLS
Protest statements such as, “How can they be against the Church?”, affect the political outcome much like a garden hose puts out a volcano. Jesus spits the lukewarm out of His mouth, because they are useless.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 9:48 AM By Tee
Time to LEAVE the Church? In this age of vincible ignorance, have they not already?

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 10:37 AM By E.G.
To the above poster Alar, You said that “Population increase make all the money and efforts near to useless.” No, overpopulation is not the problem. The problem is immorality. How many of the dear starving children are born illigitemate, without parents to care. There is enough food in the world but corrupt governments, warlords, wars, hostilities, greed, bribes, keep the food from people who need it. Go to Population Research Institute and get some facts. It is immorality and not population that causes such grief.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 11:04 AM By BETH
Alar, go back as far as possible into human history; back when there were few humans on earth. There have always been poor, and no matter what humans do there always will be. Committing MORTAL Sexual Sins does not improve the lot of the poor. Self control may. When the Government or other humans try to play god, we all suffer.

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 11:18 AM By Maggie
Alar, did you know that you could take the entire population of the and put it into Texas with each family having its own home and small yard. Over-population is a myth. Do the math. Also when is CDC going to release the numbers and cost figures on sexually transmitted desease?

Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2012 11:20 AM By Peter Reilly
It would be great to see some of these comment on the forbes.com piece that discusses the ad.