In Italy, LGBT activists to stage pride parody of Via Dolorosa

Participant of a gay pride in Lombardy. Photo: Tribune Chrétienne

On September 27 in the Italian town of Arcore (Lombardy), the Brianza Pride gay parade will take place. Its organizers plan not simply a march, but a grotesque parody of one of the most sacred and revered Christian rites – the Way of the Cross. Tribune Chrétienne reports on the coming scandal.

Though the organizers cynically advertise the event as a “celebration of inclusion,” the program in fact features a “reinterpretation” of the traditional Way of the Cross. In reality, it is nothing but a satirical mockery – an act which Catholic media have rightly branded as offensive and outright blasphemous.

The occasion for this outrage were the recent remarks of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Roman Catholic hierarch and former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2012–2017). In an interview, he stated plainly that homosexuality “is not an identity, but a tendency contrary to God’s design.”

Catholic commentators warn that such actions cannot be dismissed as harmless antics. To ridicule Christian symbols in public, they insist, fuels a culture of hatred and inevitably risks spilling over into open acts of violence against believers.

Christian activists likewise stress that the upcoming pride in Arcore will not be a harmless parade of rainbow flags, but a deliberate symbolic assault on the Church and on her teaching.

Earlier, the UOJ reported on the statement of the Archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Latvia, who emphasized that even LGBT persons can find a place within the Church.

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