Readers of Catalyst know that we have been protesting every newspaper ad placed by the Eternal Gospel Church. The ads refer to the Catholic Church as the “Whore of Babylon” and feed every paranoid belief about the Church taking over the world. Unfortunately, those responsible for the ads claim to be part of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church when, in fact, they are a splinter group of the SDA. Fortunately, an out-of-court settlement has put an end to this deceit.
The settlement bars the Eternal Gospel Church from using the official SDA church name in its anti-Catholic ads. The agreement ends a three-year trademark battle and effectively ends the bad public relations that the SDA has unfairly received in recent years. The Catholic League is happy because it denies the Eternal Gospel Church the kind of legitimacy it wants.
In court documents, the SDA correctly cited the Catholic League’s opposition to the ads placed by the Eternal Gospel Church. The SDA did not want to be perceived as being anti-Catholic and tried to get the splinter group to stop misappropriating its name. But it took a lawsuit, launched three years ago, to get the breakaway dissenters to take the SDA protest seriously.
Meanwhile, we are protesting the decision of the Winston-Salem Journal and theTribune-Star in Terre Haute to run the offensive ad. Even though the clout of the Eternal Gospel Church has been diminished, we will continue to hound them.
