Denver, Colo., Mar 14, 2018 / 03:09 pm (CNA).- On Wednesday, thousands of students throughout the United States walked out of classrooms as part of National School Walkout, a demonstration calling for safer schools and increased gun control, in the wake of the February high school shooting that left 17 Florida students dead.
Many of the walkouts were planned to last 17 minutes, in honor of each of the students who were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Feb. 14. Many Catholic schools used the day as a chance to call their students to prayer, either in addition to or instead of a walkout.
Schools in the Archdiocese of New Orleans were asked to hold 17 minutes of prayer in solidarity with shooting victims and the walkouts. The prayer services included the rosary, as well as the archdiocesan prayer against violence, murder and racism, which is recited regularly at Masses in the region.
“We didn’t hear of any schools or students participating (in the walk-out), but we were hearing from our school communities, ‘What could we do, what could we offer in support of lessening gun violence?’” Dr. RaeNell Houston, superintendent of Catholic Schools in New Orleans, told the Clarion Herald.
“Our children deserve to be safe in our school communities,” Houston added. “But we felt intentional, dedicated prayer would yield more fruitful results than a walkout. I am a witness to how God answers prayer. And we felt our time was best utilized and our statement would be bold if we dedicated that 17 minutes of prayer on behalf of the Florida victims and our country and for the safety of our children.”
Cardinal Ritter College Prep, a Catholic urban high school in St. Louis, participated in an organized school event.
Students left campus at 9:30 am and walked to nearby St. Francis Xavier Church on the campus of St. Louis University. Ronnie Robinson, the father of a recent graduate, was invited to participate in the march. Robinson and his family have lost two sons to gun violence in recent years.
After a period of prayer and silence, students returned to their classrooms to discuss the events of the day, to review the school’s active shooter policy, and to resume classes.
Elias Mendoza, principal of St. Francis Catholic High School in Sacramento, California sent a memo to parents in early March, in anticipation of the walkouts, noting that school officials recognized both the students concerns and as well as their own obligation as school employees to remain politically neutral.
Instead of a walkout, St. Francis offered a prayer service for peace and healing, noting safety concerns regarding students leaving campus in the middle of the school day.
“Together with students and school leaders, we’re working to provide students with an alternative avenue to express their viewpoints in a constructive and meaningful way, while remaining on campus, where safety measures are in place to ensure supervision and security,” Mendoza said in his letter.
“At St. Francis, we care about our (students), our families, and the faith-based community we represent. Moving forward, I ask for your prayers and partnership in doing all that we can to reassure our students and to make them strong resilient young women,” he concluded.
The Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey said on Twitter that several of the schools participated in the national walk out, and held prayer services afterward.
Today, #Catholic Schools throughout the Archdiocese of Newark took a stand against gun violence by participating in the #NationalWalkoutDay. Several schools, including St. Mary of the Assumption and Saint Dominic Academy, held prayer services following the #Walkout. #Enough pic.twitter.com/sk9Xcf1Q14
— Newark Archdiocese (@NwkArchdiocese) March 14, 2018
Sister Brittany Harrison, FMA, is the Theology Department Chair at Mary Help of Christians Academy in New Jersey.
In an interview about the walkouts with Relevant Radio, Harrison said that she was inspired by the students throughout the country who were “deciding to rise up, make their voices heard, and make social change.”
“As a Salesian, that’s what I believe in, the power of young people. So to see them doing that is just an incredible thing for me,” she said.
Harrison said that while the official walkout, sponsored by the organizers of the national Women’s March, was focused on gun control legislation, her students wanted to make their event less political and more focused on school safety in general.
Rather than the walkout, the school held a prayer service and also gave students time to write government officials about the changes they’d like to see.
“As Catholics we can really model what it is to affect social change, and our young people really want to do that,” she said.
The Diocese of Peoria, Illinois encouraged its students to take part in some kind of alternative, prayerful show of solidarity rather than the walkout, citing concerns about some of the sponsors of the national walk-out as well as safety concerns.
“Unfortunately, some of the sponsors of the National School Walkout advocate for positions that are contrary to the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of human life in all of its stages,” the Office of Catholic Schools stated in a letter to diocesan Catholic school officials.
“Due to this fact, as well as concerns for student safety on this day of national attention, our schools are directed to not permit students to stage a walkout.”
Instead, the letter suggested that diocesan schools hold Masses or prayer services for the victims.
Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit held memorial services for the victims of the Parkland shooting, including posters with pictures and brief biographies of the victims.
Students and faculty at @Shrine_Schools gathered this morning for a memorial service in honor of the victims of the #ParklandSchoolShooting #NationalWalkoutDay pic.twitter.com/IR3ZIijecZ
— Detroit Archdiocese (@DetroitCatholic) March 14, 2018
Queen of Angels elementary school in the Archdiocese of Atlanta said on Twitter that they were hosting a “walk in” rather than a walkout, and used the day as a time to encourage their students to focus on ways they could be kinder and more inclusive.
#WalkIn-Today at 10 AM while students across the nation #walkout in protest of gun violence, QA students will spend 17 minutes reaching out to others that we don’t spend enough time getting to know, and praying that all young people feel included in their communities. pic.twitter.com/civ6qR3JTC
— QA Catholic School (@QASchool) March 14, 2018
In Erie, Pennsylvania, two Catholic schools – Cathedral Preparatory School and Villa Maria Academy – held school-wide Masses and prayer services for the victims and for peace. Father Scott Jabo, president of the schools, told Fox News that the schools considered how they could approach the walkout day differently as a Catholic school.
“By praying for the victims, we could bring a great focus to the victims in this situation, and by unified prayer, we could have a powerful impact,” Jabo said.
He added that at the prayer service, the names and a short biography of each of the 17 Parkland victims would be read aloud, “to make it real that these are real people who died.”
“(We’re) doing something that was a Catholic school we can and should do and that is pray, and unleash that power of prayer,” he said.
[…]
I have now taken an “unfavorable view” about the Pontiff Leo, in light of a number of recent acts he is responsible for, including his “Jubilee” invitation to permit the LGBTQ-Pathology-Parade inside St. Peter’s Basilica, where they displayed themselves in their typical demonic costume-wear, and their “F*ck the Rules” tee shirts, as all can see, here:
https://x.com/LepantoInst/status/1964356537163370601/photo/2
Recalling to mind this message, from 2000 years ago: “Woe to you, false shepherds.”
Video (27 min. 07 sec.): Bishop Schneider Brutally Shreds James Martin’s Big Jubilee At The Vatican, by Anthony Stine, posted September 11, 2025.
The excellent site Catholic Answers posted numerous examples of the early Christian thinkers on the subject of homosexual relations, in answer to the modern Catholic Church claim that “loving” homosexual relations (but not just “lustful” relations) are OK and can be blessed by priests. Here are a few, which today’s popes and many cardinals and bishops and priests act against and probably would label as “hate speech”:
Saint Eusebius of Caesarea
“[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men, he [God] adds: ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I have recompensed [their] iniquity upon it, and the land is grieved with them that dwell upon it’ [Lev. 18:24–25]” (Proof of the Gospel 4:10 [A.D. 319]).
Saint Basil the Great
“He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under discipline for the same time as adulterers” (Letters 217:62 [A.D. 367]).
Saint John Chrysostom
“[Certain men in church] come in gazing about at the beauty of women; others curious about the blooming youth of boys. After this, do you not marvel that [lightning] bolts are not launched [from heaven], and all these things are not plucked up from their foundations? For worthy both of thunderbolts and hell are the things that are done; but God, who is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forbears awhile his wrath, calling you to repentance and amendment” (Homilies on Matthew 3:3 [A.D. 391]).
“All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26–27] . . . were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored than the body in diseases” (Homilies on Romans 4 [A.D. 391]).
“[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more shame than men” (ibid.).
Saint Augustine of Hippo
“[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way” (Confessions 3:8:15 [A.D. 400]).
Tertullian
“[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature, and are impious toward both [human] bodies and the sexes, we banish, not only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities” (Modesty 4 [A.D. 220]).
Saint Clement of Alexandria
“All honor to that king of the Scythians, whoever Anacharsis was, who shot with an arrow one of his subjects who imitated among the Scythians the mystery of the mother of the gods . . . condemning him as having become effeminate among the Greeks, and a teacher of the disease of effeminacy to the rest of the Scythians” (Exhortation to the Greeks 2 [A.D. 190]).
Saint Justin Martyr (the first recognized philosopher of the Christian era)
“[W]e have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do anyone harm and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm. . . . And there are some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods” (First Apology 27 [A.D. 151]).
________________________________________
The Didache
“You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born” (Didache 2:2 [A.D. 70]).
The events of “a pride parade” in the St Peter’s Basilica is not as mind-blowing in itself as its juxtaposition with the TLM Mass in Latin celebrated there by Cardinal Burke in the same Basilica. To aid myself in processing that juxtaposition, I even made a photo collage of those two events: on the left – the photo of the “rainbow people” with “F*ck the Rules” in St Peter’s, on the right – a traditional Bishop, surrounded the altar servers in traditional garbs, facing the high altar and razing the Holy Host in the same St Peter’s. Pity I cannot post it here; it would express my point far better than words. The collage caused a mind to go into a halt.
Indeed, it is impossible to put two events together, in a believer’s mind. Yet they are being put together and then pushed into the throat of the Church. Not just “a pride parade”, not just the TLM with Cardinal Burke but them put together like two sides of a coin, with “F*ck the Rules” on one side and “Agnus Dei” on another one. It is disgusting even to type it but I invite the reader to stop and ponder the image.
“Oh, but the parade was first and the TLM will be second” does not really work because the Church of Christ exists in eternity – as long as Christ is its Head. “Agnus Dei” was present in St Peter’s in a form of the Blessed Sacrament when “F*ck the Rules” was brought in before Him. If we believe in the Real Presence, then it was literally said to Christ, in the same technique of a postmodern collage.
Hence, it is right to say that two events happen simultaneously, in the timeless realm. However, they are also mutually cancelling, leaving zero, nothing in the Church. Only that “nothing” can accommodate such contrary phenomena and not just accommodate – not to feel any discomfort.
“razing the Holy Host” in English means destroying or demolish. You may have intended ‘raising’ the Holy Host. A double entendre with relevance in both instances. No one can destroy the Eucharist because the act has harmful repercussion for the person rather than the Eucharist.
The bishop who offered the Mass and raised the Eucharist before adamant homosexuals, putatively a blasphemy may have incurred irreparable harm to himself. I would add inclusive of those responsible for permitting the act.
A spelling accident but, as you said, it is fitting.
Objectively speaking yes, no one can destroy the Eucharist – and yet he can, psychologically, for its recipients. It is done via a covert denial of what (or better to say Who) Eucharist is, via engaging in actions which “cancel” its reality.
For example, a priest implicitly denies the Real Presence, if yesterday he abused a child after Mass and today he preaches “the love of Christ which we all must show to others”/ “allow the little ones to come to me etc” and then gives communion to that very child he abused and to his family. Not only is it psychologically perverse, it is also blasphemous in the context of a juxtaposition, of what he has done and of the Church.
However, while such an experience often ruins a faith of an abused (and of his family), it is still not as potent as the actions of other clerics who cover up the abuse and allow the abuser to continue saying Mass, as if nothing ever happened. The fact that one who believes in Christ cannot engage in mutually excluding actions, of an abuse of a child and of preaching the love of Christ and “little children”, is for some reason being ignored. This is rightly experienced by the victims and their families as mind-blowing, a world turned upside-down. NB: not an abuse as such is mind-blowing but a sick dichotomy: the same person abuses and IS “Persona Christi”, psychosocially kills and gives Life (Eucharist), literally tearing the soul apart.
I gave an example of child sexual abuse to make my point more accessible but instead of abuse of human persons, a liturgical abuse can be just as effective if it involves a blasphemous attitude to the Person of Christ as to a non-person. A priest/Church who today preach about “love of Christ” and tomorrow spits on the same Christ via their actions represent the same sick dichotomy and the same vector, of a covert denial of Christ. In essence, this dichotomy reveals that both Christ (and a child from an example above) is just a soulless tool. He is not the Person. He can be switched on”, used to back up some agenda and then switched off again. I argue that this “on and off” switching of Christ, in His Church, psychologically destroys Him = the Eucharist for people.
Yes, duplicity is a scourge within Church and world.
For those of us who are aware of the wounds inflicted on Christ [figuratively] and Church [in reality], and positioned to meaningfully respond I cite the Prayer after communion for today’s Mass, Our Lady of Sorrows:
Having received the Sacrament of eternal redemption, we humbly ask, O Lord, that, honoring how the Blessed Virgin Mary suffered with her Son, we may complete in ourselves for the Church’s sake what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.
This prayerful intent is most relevant regarding the moral tragedy of a Roman pontiff tacitly permitting the adamantly sexually disordered to pass through the Holy Doors and celebrate their depravity in Our Lord’s sanctuary.
Chris,
I’m unhappy to say that IMHO I also find it hard to support or now even listen to Pope Leo.
in addition to your point about the LBTG sacrilegious parade in St. Pete’s Basilica, he appoints as Vatican Director of Fine Arts Cristiana Perrella, whose resume includes porn productions (perhaps soft porn, I don’t know, but it sounds like porn none the same).
Then there’s the meeting with Fr. James Martin, seemingly a man of genuine compassion for gays but also one who expresses views undeniably contrary to Sacred Scripture and the true Magisterium. That used to be called heresy.
Lastly, there’s the Pope’s recent pronouncement which showed continued kowtowing to the atheistic Chinese regime.
Just all very disappointing. I’m not a Newman scholar by any means but I recall once reading his view that during the Arian heresy, it was the laity that sustained Christ’s Church. That may be the challenge now for us all.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Yes…thank you for noting the newly appointed pornographer-fine-arts-director.
Recalling to mind the title of an address given by Solzhenitsyn in 1976: “If One Doesn’t Wish to be Blind.”
One can find plentiful homoerotic artworks in the Vatican. It is far from being a major problem.
I looked into the artists from Perella’s resume; the majority do typical “modern art” – installations, photos, homoerotic/queer etc. that has nothing to do with the Christian sacred art. Two artists attracted my attention; I did not keep the links/names but they can be easily found.
One had an exhibition called ‘Sacrilegio’ (a self-descriptive title); an artist took medieval/early Renaissance prototypes, mostly ‘Madonna and Child’, and painted over their Faces some objects a la Salvator Dali suggestive of excrements, intestines, or tiny faces protruding and suspended looking like female sexual organ etc.
That was offensive of course but another one was far worse. The artist took photos of people, mostly females, burnt their eyes and mouths out and called them ‘Self-portrait with Nadia M.’ or ‘Self-portrait with Lisa D.’ etc. The artworks show only mutilated faces, not an artist himself. I understood that “self-portraits” are clearly his action towards those females whose faces he disfigured. I.e., the message is of a wild violence towards females bordering on psychopathy.
Being an iconographer, I have never seen a better anti-icon than his works which show a murderous denial of the personhood of the depicted. An iconographer typically labours over making the personhood as visible as possible; he enlarges eyes and makes them and a mouth very expressive to highlight the presence of a person. That anti-iconographer did exactly the opposite i.e. burned them out.
To me it is quite symbolic of what is going on and far worse than homoerotic stuff or even, strangely enough, ‘Sacrilegio’. Compared to that psychopathic “art”, various homo-nudes of another artist are nothing.
Such is the person who is now in charge of Christian art in the Vatican.
Actually, 100% of Catholics favor the Pope. The 20% in the poll misrepresented their Catholicity.
Unfortunately, per the same sort of popular opinion polls, 70% of Catholics reject Jesus’ teaching that the Eucharist is His Body.
Please understand that I am not suggesting that the polls define “Catholics” as baptized Catholics who also happen to obey Jesus.
Regardless of “methodology” in these polls, I believe there is much commonality in the numbers of those who “favor” Prevost and those who do not believe in the True Presence in the Holy Eucharist. I believe that among those who “favor” Prevost (84%) are many of the same who do not believe in the True Presence of our Lord in Holy Communion (70%).
Why do you come to that conclusion RM?
M. Bruno: You seem to be an authority on Catholicism Please tell the rest of us what exactly defines someone being called “Catholic.” Be specific, including identifiably measurable behaviors and beliefs. Thank you. This will be most helpful as it’s very obvious that just about anyone can call themselves Catholic (including the Pope).
I’m not too thrilled with his having granted a private audience to Fr. Martin, or with his kowtowing to the Chinese, but he seems to be easing up on the Latin Mass issue, and that I REALLY like, and overall I like him.
Of course the fact that he is DA POPE, as proclaimed by my latest t-shirt, is part of the whole thing.
I like the guy.
I like him, too Mr. Terence.
Are the 80% favorably disposed because just as it was during Francis’ pontificate they need not be worried by those troublesome rules and simply just get along with everyone? Attend Mass and you’re saved?
The same Pew surveying found that 70% of Catholics do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Pew also found that 23% of Catholics confess at least once a year. These aren’t remarkably good stats. To date Leo XIV hasn’t changed these stats except regarding likeability. He has exercised continuity with his predecessor Francis.
Said Henry VIII to Thomas More (in Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons”) who asked, “Then why does Your Grace need my poor support?”
“Because you are honest. What’s more to the purpose, you’re known to be honest…There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I wear the crown, and there are those like Master Cromwell who follow me because they are jackals with sharp teeth and I am their lion, AND there is a mass that follows me because it follows anything that moves [!]–and then there is you.”
Thomas More had that rare integrity that remained faithful to authority, for Henry because he was king. When sent to the Tower he wrote Meg commending Henry’s graciousness for allowing him to live there in peace hoping he would continue in that vein.
There is a certain nobility in acknowledging deference owed to authority in our case a Roman pontiff, an office instituted by Christ. Which makes the Chair, and its occupant possessive of that owed dignity. With that there’s the life or spiritual death dimension that those of us with orders have a duty to assess, conscientiously respond without malice or insult in respect of the office.
Pope Leo XIV seems to be to be a likable fellow. I wouldn’t mind spending some time with him over dinner. However, that is not what makes a great pope. Is he orthodox, is he wise, does he take the the great charge of spreading the Gospel to all people seriously? Will he govern and to govern means that some shepherds need to be chastised for their own good and the good of the sheep. So far, the jury is still out IMHO. I’m looking forward to the re-instatement of Frank Pavone and Bishop Strickland. Once I see that, I’ll be relieved.
The date during which this survey was taken is very telling. I believe it was BEFORE he was patting the heads of those “Catholics” like Martin, and made appointments from those who support dubious and condemned sexual activities. I would wager if the poll was taken now it would show much more unfavorable reactions. I can tell you that those who I see at daily Mass are unhappy and disappointed.
I am sorry to feel this way. I was beyond thrilled that an American was actually elected pope. He seemed like a kindly and thoughtful person. However if he also is a “go along to get along” type looking for approval from the secular leaning types, he doesnt get my vote.
I believe also that Pope Leo is kindly & thoughtful.
As long as Fiducia Supplicans with all its ambiguities and sophistry remain a declaration from one of the Vatican’s dicasteries, suspicion remains that 2357 – 2359 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church will be targeted for alteration to suit the zeitgeist.