HAMILTON, Ontario, June 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Concerned Catholic Parents of Ontario organization is holding a prayer vigil on June 12th in an effort to convince Ontario’s bishops to renounce their support for a government equity strategy that they say threatens the integrity of Catholic sexual teaching in the schools.
Last month, the Ontario bishops asked Catholic school boards throughout the province to begin planning a network of clubs at all publicly-funded Catholic high schools with the “primary goal” of combating “bullying related to sexual orientation” in conjunction with provincial equity strategy mandates.
Since then, however, a government bureaucrat has told LifeSiteNews.com that these clubs would be forbidden from helping students to “reform” their sexuality. The head of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) has also claimed that the “anti-bullying” clubs are really just the activist-oriented and gay-affirmative gay-straight alliances “with a Catholic name.”
“We believe that the Bishops acted under intense pressure, and we are asking that they look at this document again,” Kim Galvao of Concerned Catholic Parents of Ontario told LifeSiteNews. “We the Catholic Laity understand the pressures our bishops are facing. We want to encourage them to defend the truth no matter how difficult.”
“As heads of the Church we humbly ask that they fight in our defence and be a clear visible sign that we Catholics will not be bullied by any government that insists on its own mandate that contradicts the teaching of the Church.”
The Catholic parents’ organization had planned a 50-day prayer campaign to run from Good Friday on April 22nd to the Feast of Pentecost on June 12th, with prayer vigils outside the diocesan chancery office to launch and conclude the campaign. After a complaint from the diocese due to the date chosen for the vigil, however, Kim Galvao chose to cancel the kick-off vigil on Good Friday.
The group asked Catholics in Ontario to join them in praying daily for one hour “beseeching God to give our shepherds, Ontario’s Bishops, the courage to reject McGuinty’s Equity mandate.”
Concerned Catholic Parents of Ontario has been working to educate parents and gather support for their efforts. “We Concerned Catholic of Ontario have been very busy over the last six weeks. We have been praying an hour a day,” said Galvao. “We believe in the power of prayer.”
The concluding prayer vigil will be held at the Diocese of Hamilton’s chancery office on Sunday, June 12th at 2:00 p.m. Catholic Parents of Ontario encourages all Catholics in the province to join in solidarity with their vigil by praying outside their respective diocesan offices.
“We need to be a clear visible sign and we want our diocese to know that we care what is happening to our Catholic School System,” concluded Galvao.