NY archdiocese should sever ties with St. Patrick's Day parade

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 04, 2014

You don’t honor a saint by encouraging a sin.

No doubt there have been homosexual persons marching down Fifth Avenue every year in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. There was never any ban on their participation; there was no test of sexual orientation for marchers. But next year the parade in New York will feature something new: a group of avowed homosexuals carrying a banner, promoting same-sex unions, supporting the gay lifestyle.

Next year there will be only one story-line of interest to the reporters who cover the annual parade in the world’s media capital: the triumph of the gay activists. Photographers will be competing for the one “money” shot: the picture of the contingent from OUT@NBCUniversal marching past the reviewing stand at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, under the benign smile of Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

And the media will be right to concentrate on that story line, because this is a significant advance for homosexual activists, a significant retreat for the Catholic Church. A generation ago, the late Cardinal John O’Connor said that it would be impossible to include proponents of homosexuality in a Catholic event. Now they will be included—and although the parade’s sponsors, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee*, made that crucial change in policy, it is difficult to believe that they made their decision without sounding out the leaders of the New York archdiocese.

Has Catholic teaching changed, then, to allow this accommodation? Pope Francis, questioned about homosexuality, famously replied, “Who am I to judge?” But in resisting demands from gay-activist groups to be included in the parade, the New York archdiocese was not judging homosexuals. It was simply observing that it would be absurd to include, in an event honoring a saint, a group dedicated to public acceptance of a moral disorder.

But plenty of people have sat in judgment of others during these 20 years of debate about the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Gay activists and their editorial sympathizers judged Cardinal O’Connor to be a bigot. Angry protesters lined the parade route with placards, denouncing the Catholic Church as a citadel of bigotry.

It is a lie to say that the Catholic Church encourages hatred. But now promoters of that lie will be marching triumphantly in a parade advertised as a Catholic-sponsored event. And there will be other lies, too, set forth by participants in this parade dedicated to Saint Patrick: the lie that homosexual acts are normal and healthy, the lie that gender is only a social construct, the lie that a man might really be a woman and vice versa.

The gay-rights movement has never been aimed merely at preventing discrimination. Homosexual activists demand not only that we refrain from judging them, but also that we accept their outlook. We are being warned that if we don’t want to be labeled as bigots, we must accept as good something that we have previously condemned as wrong; we must accept as truths what we know to be lies. That “money” photo from the St. Patrick’s Day parade next year will be taken as a sign of just such acceptance.

Meanwhile, as homosexual activists gain public acceptance, proponents of Christian morality are pushed aside. In 10 years, will it still be possible for someone to write what I have just written? Will media outlets give any space for such views? Will web sites that convey these idea be blocked? If so—if homosexual activists succeed in silencing their intellectual opponents—no small part of the blame will be born by the parade organizers and the Archdiocese of New York.

How has it come to pass, that a parade organized to honor the patron saint of Ireland has furnished the occasion for a major symbolic victory in the fight to overthrow Christian moral standards?

No doubt there was a time, some years ago, when the St. Patrick’s Day parade really was a Catholic observance. But over the years the religious aspect of the event has faded into the background, overwhelmed at first by the tribal celebration of Irish identity, and later by the same forces that govern any civic celebration. For the vast majority of participants and observers, the St. Patrick’s Day parade is no more a “Catholic” event than a Notre Dame football game.

Catholic piety was drowned long ago in the beery atmosphere of the celebration. It was a major blow when Guinness withdrew its sponsorship, siding with gay-rights protesters. But it is even more significant that this year, the pressure for change apparently came largely from NBC, the network that broadcasts the parade. (The homosexual group slated for inclusion is, not coincidentally, an organization for NBC employees.) It was unthinkable that the parade would go on without beer, without corporate sponsorships, without a live broadcast. The St. Patrick’s Day parade had become a city-wide party, a commercial venture, a media production.

Still the tradition had survived that the cardinal-archbishop of New York would stand on the steps of his cathedral, greeting the marchers, giving the parade his endorsement, keeping up the pretense that this march was a religious event. For next year’s parade, Cardinal Dolan had been named grand marshal, emphasizing the link to the Church and the implicit blessing of the participants.

If this really is a Catholic event, it cannot include a group defined by its opposition to Church teaching. If it is a Catholic event, forget Guinness, forget NBC, forget the hoopla, and quietly honor St. Patrick.

But if it is not a Catholic event—if it is just another civic celebration, to which all are welcome, regardless of their attitude toward the Church—then it’s time to end an anachronism. There should be no reviewing stand outside St. Patrick’s cathedral, no sign of Church sponsorship. Cardinal Dolan should step aside as grand marshal.

*- An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified the parade's organizers as the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Since 1993, the parade has been organized by this separate group, created by the AOH for that purpose.