Vatican Advisor Assails Advertising

Sister Angela Ann Zukowski, a top Vatican advisor on the media, joined critics of the advertising industry at a recent ethics seminar discussion of global marketing, particularly to children.

Zukowski called advertising “a relentless hammer to bash our heads in, to replace all that is best and truest with the instant and the most profitable.”

The Vatican is concerned enough with the moral erosion it associates with advertising that three cardinals asked Zukowski to meet with advertising executives. Zukowski, who spoke at a University of Dayton seminar, is president of Unda-World, the international Catholic association for broadcasters and communicators. She plans to set up a Web site as an ethics study guide.

The criticism drew a chilly reception. “The Catholic Church has enough problems, and they shouldn’t be worried about advertising,” said Donny Deutsch, CEO of Deutsch in New York.

The Rev. Carl K. Moeddel, auxiliary bishop of Cincinnati, responded: “Whenever the reaction is ‘The church should stay out of this,’ what it always says to me is the church should have become involved much sooner.”