The head of the Archdiocese of Toronto is urging his congregation to use exclusively Catholic symbols and not those “borrowed” from political movements as Catholic schools raise the Pride flag during June.
Cardinal Leo, the Archbishop of Toronto’s large Archdiocese, released a statement calling out Catholics who would use “misguided and inadequate” symbols to promote Christian values.
“We need to make sure that the symbols we use are consistent with our Catholic faith and not borrowed from ideological fora, promoted by lobby groups and endorsed by political movements,” Leo said in the statement released Thursday.
The announcement marked the beginning of the Catholic liturgical month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The month of June has been recognized as the Sacred Heart of Jesus month by the Catholic church since the 19th century.
The Archdiocese encompasses 12 cities, including Toronto and the GTA, with six separate Catholic school boards under its jurisdiction. Among those school boards, only two have voted against flying the Pride flag from schools and administrative buildings during June.
“We need to make sure that the symbols we use are consistent with our Catholic faith and not borrowed from other religions, popular trends, or political movements,” Leo said in the statement. “We ought to honour and respect our traditions and not allow them to be emptied of the faith by using them for anything other than our spiritual growth.”
The Sacred Heart of Jesus is an image depicting Jesus’ physical heart surrounded by thorns. Previously, both Leo and his predecessor, Cardinal Collins, had declared that the Sacred Heart and the cross were sufficient symbols to represent inclusivity, not the Pride flag.
“We do good to use our own symbols to tell our own story without resorting to trendy, misguided and inadequate symbols that do not represent us as Catholics but rather contribute to confusion, distortions and ambiguities about what the Catholic faith truly teaches regarding the human person, human nature, and natural moral law,” The statement said.
He continued warning about Catholics using symbols borrowed from secular society, which distort the values Catholics are bound to believe.
“Let us not water down our symbols to blur out anything worth restoring to reality,” the statement read. “Indeed, truly needed is a robust witness as Catholics that contribute to confusion, distortion and ambiguities about what the Catholic faith truly teaches regarding Jesus Christ and the transformation that he alone can bring to the world.”
The Campaign Life Coalition, a “pro-life, pro-family” organization, has planned mass student absences across Canada to protest Pride month celebrations taking place in schools nationwide, including Catholic schools.
The Christian advocacy group is also planning “pray-in” style protests at school board administration offices across the Archdiocese of Toronto on Monday. They plan to call for Catholic schools to refrain from participating in LGBT Pride during June.
CLC also planned to pray outside the Archdiocese of Toronto headquarters, asking the bishops to formally urge their Catholic school boards to refrain from promoting Pride in schools. However, that was before the statement was released.
Catholic schools are under the jurisdiction of Leo and the Archdiocese, and school trustees swear oaths of fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Christian advocates such as the CLC have repeatedly asked the Archdiocese to play a more active role in preventing the Pride movement from proliferating in Catholic schools.