(LifeSiteNews) — Joining me on this episode of The John Henry Westen Show is Jack Fonseca, director of political operations at the Campaign Life Coalition. We discussed the relentless attacks against Toronto Catholic school board trustee Michael Del Grande for attempting to uphold the Catholic faith in the district, his latest legal battles, and more.
I began the episode by asking Fonseca to briefly recap why Trustee Del Grande has been severely punished by a Catholic school board for opposing transgender ideology.
He explained that the controversy goes back to 2019 when then-education minister of Ontario, Lisa Thompson, requested that all school boards adopt new “transgender” ideology terms such as “gender identity” and “gender expression” to their code of conduct policies, which was subsequently proposed by the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB).
“And Michael knew that embracing gender identity and gender expression as a protected ground in a faith-based Catholic school would be disastrous to the faith. It would mean that Catholic schools would have to allow a male teacher to show up in class in front of kids wearing a dress, a woman’s dress, lipstick, a lady’s wig, high heels, you know, whatever, whatever they want to do,” Fonseca said.
“Michael knew that it would mean that male students, if they pretend to be the opposite sex or they actually believe they’re the opposite sex, they’re sexually confused and they demand access to the girl’s washrooms, change rooms, or showers at school. That would have to be permitted,” he added.
Fonseca emphasized how once the majority of the board signaled that they planned to vote in favor of adopting the new terms, despite objections from many of their constituents, Del Grande made a facetious, last-ditch motion to show the other trustees how this vote would contradict the faith.
“Mike’s motion proposed adding bestiality, pedophilia, polygamy, necrophilia, and other sexual fetishes as protected grounds, too. And he basically said, ‘Hey, you’re not being inclusive enough. We have to be more inclusive. Let’s protect even more of God’s children. Jesus loves them all. So, let’s add all these terms. Why stop at those pitiful few?’” he recalled.
Del Grande’s attempt to stir the consciences of his fellow trustees ultimately failed and the gender ideology terms were adopted. But I noted that the attacks on him for promoting and trying to preserve the authentic Catholic faith in Toronto Catholic schools have continued, and so I asked Fonseca to explain the smear campaign and persecution that followed.
He underscored that the LGBT lobby decided to attack Del Grande and make an example of him to show that any resistance to their ideology would not be tolerated.
“They could not allow any resistance to their ideological colonization of these faith-based schools. They could not allow it to stand unpunished, lest it spread to other school boards, Catholic, public, or even to other levels of government, where, you know if one courageous person stands up and opposes their agenda, might it spread to others?” Fonseca said.
“So they clearly, in my mind, decide amongst themselves, ‘We got to destroy this man, we got to make an example of him to everyone else across the country, all other politicians, got to learn.’ And so they immediately started up a hate campaign against him using the legacy media, you know, TV, radio, newspaper, it was all out,” he added.
To hear more about Michael Del Grande’s efforts to defend the Catholic faith in Toronto Catholic schools, watch or listen to the full episode.
The John-Henry Westen Show is available by video on the show’s YouTube channel and right here on my LifeSite blog.
It is also available in audio format on platforms such as Spotify, Soundcloud, and Acast. We are awaiting approval for iTunes and Google Play as well. To subscribe to the audio version on various channels, visit the Acast webpage here.
We’ve created a special email list for the show so that we can notify you every week when we post a new episode. Please sign up now by clicking here. You can also subscribe to the YouTube channel, and you’ll be notified by YouTube when there is new content.
You can send me feedback, or ideas for show topics by emailing [email protected].
RELATED:
‘We don’t want the fear of God’: Toronto Catholic school trustees oppose St. Michael prayer
Woke pro-DEI judge rules against Catholic trustee Mike Del Grande
Vindictive trustees are seeking the financial ruin of persecuted Catholic Michael Del Grande