Twice in the last month, online protests of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) have succeeded in removing sacrilegious items from purchase or have elicited apologies from the offending parties.
The first incident involved the online discount store Groupon, which featured a blasphemous product on their site called, “Jesus Condoms” from FunnyCondoms.com.
Within twenty-four hours of the protest’s launch, over five and a half thousand people had signed and the item in question disappeared from the website.
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Here are some reactions from those who signed the petition:
Dora B. – Groupon, how dare you offend Jesus after he gave his life for you get on your knees and ask for forgiveness, no more groupon for me!
Amanda P. – Time to boycott Groupon. There is a line that you do not want to cross that is, disrespect and blasphemy.
Connie H. – Time to BOYCOTT GROUPON. All they seem to understand is money. Hit them in the pocketbook.
Annmarie M. – No more groupon for me.
Sandy L. – Boycott Groupon
Alice H. – Groupon REPENT and remove the ad now!
A second successful protest involved a jacket with an offensive image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The coat was a military-style green utility coat with a cartoon-style image of Our Lady of Guadalupe printed on the back. Around Our Lady are the words, “F**k the world. Jinho Jeans.”
This jacket was being distributed by the online retailer She-in.
Over thirty thousand signatures were gathered and an apology was issued from the retailer after the jacket was removed. The apology stated as follows:
Dear TFP,
This is the customer service from www.shein.com
We kindly thank you for letting us know that we had made such a situation which unconsciously offended you.
We sincerely apologize to you about the impertinent jacket, we were totally unconscious and definitely had no offence to your holy faith.
The jacket has been off the shelf yesterday (January 17th) and we ensure that we will pay more attention to the items with such kind of issues.
Your suggestions in the future about our items are much appreciated.
But till now, we still got thousands of emails to complain even though the item has been of the shelf, would you please be kind to inform the millions of Catholics worldwide to stop sending us the emails about the item?
The Church has always encouraged the faithful to pray in reparation for the outrages which God suffers at the hands of men. Our Lady at Fatima also made an urgent plea for reparation.
Given a culture of ever increasing blasphemy and sacrilege, it is easy to become insensitive to these offenses. However, one cannot dismiss an incident such as these as, “just another blasphemy.” As stated in the Fourth Commandment, Catholics must defend the honor of God and His Blessed Mother. With the above two examples of recent victories over sacrilege, take heart; protests do work.