Advocates plan “pray-in” to protest Catholic school board Pride events
A Christian advocacy group is organizing “pray-in” protests at Catholic school boards in Ontario that plan to fly Pride flags in June for LGBT Pride month.
Author: Clayton DeMaine
A Christian advocacy group is organizing “pray-in” protests at Catholic school boards in Ontario that plan to fly Pride flags in June for LGBT Pride month.
The Campaign Life Coalition is holding “quiet and peaceful” protests outside Ontario school administration buildings, calling on Catholic schools to adhere to Catholic Church teachings against the Pride movement and for church leadership to intervene.
The “pray-ins” are scheduled in seven different cities in Ontario, with events in Oshawa, Elmvale, Hamilton, Kitchener, Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara.
The group is calling Christians to provide loving “witness” outside of the school boards to “disrupt the notion that there is a ubiquitous and unchallengeable consensus on Pride ideology in schools.”
“We know this may be a more difficult issue to confront publicly than that of abortion, which is why it’s all the more necessary for us to do so,” the group said in an email to supporters. “This is always and only done through love—a love so strong and fierce that it can withstand inevitable misunderstandings and accusations of ‘hatred.’”
Josie Luetke, the director of education and advocacy for CLC, told True North that the “pray in” is a call not just to the school boards but to bishops who have jurisdiction over the schools to directly ask that they refuse to fly the pride flag during the Catholic month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“If that school refused, then at least everyone would know that that school, even though they claim to be Catholic, is not really Catholic, and at least it’s not being obedient to the teachings of the Church and to the local bishop,” she said.
In June of last year, the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board in Toronto voted against flying the Pride flag. The school board voted only to fly Canadian and provincial flags at the school after Cardinal Collins and now Cardinal Frank Leo, the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Toronto, stated that the cross and the sacred heart of Jesus were sufficient symbols for inclusivity.
“There were trustees who were kind of on the fence about it, but even if they’re unsure about their feelings of the pride flag, they at least recognize, ‘hey, we’re going to follow the directive of the bishop,’” Luetke said. “Unfortunately, a lot of other Catholic trustees…care more about being politically correct than they do about actually being Catholic.”
Luetke said the protest is “simply requesting” more involvement from the church, calling out the encroachment of LGBT idealogy into Catholic schools and crediting the board’s decision to the cardinal’s comments.
“We’re asking them to be even more direct and just straight up tell these school boards publicly stop flying the pride flag if you refuse, and you can no longer consider yourself Catholic,” she said. “So that’s the bare minimum. But in addition to that, like, protect your charge, protect the children and look at what’s happening in schools.”
She noted that the newly appointed Pope Leo XIV has also made statements affirming that LGBT ideology is not Catholic.
She said the protest has become wider than just a Catholic movement, with locations even in the streets of Elmvale.
“I think when you have the infiltration of LGBTQ ideologies in schools, really you’re taken away from the cross, which includes a message of chastity, includes a message of restraint and temperance,” she said.
When asked how she would respond to objections that if Catholic schools don’t abide by society’s stance on LGBT ideology, calls to defund the schools will grow louder, Luetke said it’s “very important” Catholics don’t sell out their values in the pursuit of retaining public funding.
The event, planned outside the Durham Catholic District School Board in Oshawa, comes just three months after the board voted against allowing delegates from the public to raise concerns over the “Catholic” schools flying pride flags.
“If you won’t let us delegate, we are at least showing up,” Luetke said. “You’ll hear from us one way or another.”