Montreal, Canada, Dec 9, 2003 / 22:00 pm
A Quebec TV ad, featuring a priest and his congregation singing the praises of a barbecue chicken chain as a hymn at mass, has ruffled more than a few Catholic feathers in Canada’s French province, reported the Globe and Mail.
Les Rotisseries St-Hubert Ltd., has agreed to drop the ad, after being inundated with complaints from offended customers.
The massive reaction from Quebecers took the company by surprise since most people in the province, though nominally Catholic, have the lowest church-attendance rates in Canada.
Jean-Claude Hardy, the company’s director of marketing, said he received about 50 to 70 complaints a day since the ad first aired Oct. 26, including one from an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Montreal, who asked to go unnamed.