VIEW THE ADThe Freedom From Religion Foundation will be running a full-page ad this week in The New York Times urging people to leave the church, in response to the newest revelations over sexual crimes against children in the Catholic Church.
The ad, headlined “It’s time to consider quitting the Catholic Church,” quotes the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report into sex abuse of minors by Catholic officials: “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all.”
Reads the ad:
“Six dioceses, three hundred predatory priests, a staggering 1,000-plus victims. No bishops indicted. The pope’s response? All words, no action — except, insultingly, to call on the faithful to ‘pray and fast.’”
The ad continues:
“As an early church whistleblower put it, the Catholic Church appears to be an ‘organization preaching morality while providing sanctuary to perverts,’ a church where shepherds routinely prey on their flock.
“Three decades of preying priests, church complicity, collusion and cover-up going all the way to the top. Anyone who continues to support this morally bankrupt global syndicate is complicit. This institutional betrayal of trust epitomizes the dangers of blind faith and obedience to religious authority.
“Help FFRF in our work to liberate minds and place humanity above dogma.”
FFRF famously first ran ads suggesting that Catholics quit the Catholic Church in 2012, at the time the U.S. bishops were targeting women’s reproductive rights by working against Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate. The first ad, which ran in The New York Times, created a firestorm. Similar ads later ran in The Washington Post, USA Today and Los Angeles Times, and FFRF ran a billboard in Times Square urging people to quit the Catholic Church.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation represents more than 32,000 freethinkers (atheists and agnostics) in North America, and works as a watchdog safeguarding the constitutional wall of separation between state and church.