Not a day goes by at the Catholic League without some lunatic sending us hate mail. Our favorite crackpot mail comes from fringe Protestant groups. They generally tell us that we’re going straight to Hell because we follow the teachings of the Catholic Church. But lest we think they’re against us (why would we think that?), they hasten to add how much they love us. You see, they’re praying for us. Praying we bolt from the Church and join them. They certainly are a patient lot.
Readers of Catalyst know that we have been hounding the Eternal Gospel Church all over the country. Every time this Seventh-day Adventists splinter group takes out a full-page ad in a newspaper attacking Catholicism, we ask the publisher not to promote their bigotry again. In most cases, we’ve been successful in getting publishers to pledge that they won’t accept any more of their ads. Now the Eternal Gospel Church is fighting back.
In a long letter to William Donohue, Pastor Raphael Perez, who heads the group, asks the Catholic League president to stop trying to get their ads spiked. He began his letter this way: “Greetings. Enclosed you will find the free book, entitled, ‘The Anti-Christ’ by Lawrence Nelson….” He was kind enough to send Donohue three other books to grace his office: Darkness Before Dawn, Two Beasts, Three Deadly Wounds & Fourteen Popesand The Vatican Mafia. “Our objective in sending you these other books is to prove to you once and for all that our beliefs do not represent some obscure fringe groups,” he said. To which Donohue opined, “Now if this is mainline Protestantism, we Catholics really are in trouble.”
The Catholic League president said the letter and the books literally left him breathless. Usually he gets no gifts—just obscene letters. After all, it’s not every day that he gets a letter that opens with “Greetings,” and is then told how appreciative he should be upon receiving anti-Catholic books as a gift.
Donohue believes in reciprocity and that is why he sent Pastor Perez a letter of thanks and one free publication: The Catholic League’s 2001 Annual Report on Anti-Catholicism. He was thoughtful enough to direct the good pastor to those pages of the report that lists the anti-Catholic contributions of the Eternal Gospel Church.
If you would like to write to Pastor Raphael Perez, you can do so at Eternal Gospel Church, 5419 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, FL 33416.
