I hesitate even to draw attention to it, but Toronto’s 38th annual (really?) ‘Gay Pride’ parade (with other similar events in other cities) has come and gone, with all the mess to clean up. To his credit, Doug Ford did not attend, a good sign and a rather counter-cultural stance that bodes some hope for the future. This is not to say that those with same-sex attraction should not be shown compassion and charity, without unjust discrimination, but distinctions must be made, and these ‘parades’ go way beyond that, celebrating and fostering perversity. Our attendance, or non-attendance, as the case may be, signifies something rather significant. Perhaps Mr. Ford will inspire some true conservatism lurking somewhere in this vast province, waiting to come out, into the light.
Johann Edebbo’s article analyses the cultural death of the father, akin, and linked to, Nietzsche’s proclamation, through his own anti-prophet Zarathustra, of the death of God. No father, no God, and no God, no father, for both, in subsidiary ways, are the principle of order and authority, which ultimately flow from love, but a love which transcends an emotive response to transitory circumstances.
We may hope that soon the undermining of the father will have run its course, and, even by the long way around, people realize that the primordial family structure, father, mother, children, is the only basis on which to build society, culture and civilization itself, and the only structure in which truly to raise children, perhaps the most sacrificial endeavour upon which one can set out.
Here’s hoping that the Vatican and more specifically the Magisterium, in the upcoming Synod on Youth can see their way to emphasizing this notion of sacrificing one’s life for others, within the vocation to marriage and family life, along with the supernatural vocations to priesthood and religious life. The signs so far, including the speakers booked, are rather wobbly and mixed, so pray for clarity, order and the right use of authority in truth…all within the proper notion of spiritual fatherhood, which is what the priesthood and episcopacy are all about.