Editor’s Note: Michael Del Grande is a Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee under attack from LGBT activists and their allies. Del Grande, along with Theresa Lubinski, Garry Tanuan, and Nancy Crawford, voted Nov. 7 against adding “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the TCDSB’s code of conduct. He warned the TCDSB was heading down a “slippery slope” by adding terms that endorse gender ideology in contradiction to Church teaching, and he facetiously proposed that the board add other categories of sexual preferences, such as bestiality and paedophilia. Led by former board chair Maria Rizzo, LGBTQ lobbyists and allies have attacked Del Grande, calling for the board to rebuke him and for the trustee to resign. On Dec. 9, the 12-member board voted against publicly reprimanding Del Grande for alleged code of conduct violations. However, the trustees voted to discuss code of conduct complaints publicly in the future. Del Grande probably faces further questions about his integrity. On Dec. 13, LifeSiteNews published Mike Del Grande’s statement of defence against his critics. It is printed with permission.

 Michael Del Grande

Michael Del Grande

Michael Del Grande

In recent weeks I have received emails that have been very negative as well as those that have been very supportive of the stand that I took about adding specific terms to the Toronto Catholic District School Board. I have been called a “hero” by supporters.

I am not a hero. I am a faithful Catholic with an informed conscience standing up for Catholic education and Church teachings. The Church is the instrument of eternal salvation for humanity. Catholic educational institutions are what the Vatican would call, “the participation of the Christian community in the Catholic schools’ work. It is a genuine community bent on imparting, over and above an academic education, all the help it can to its members to adopt a Christian way of life. For the Catholic school mutual respect means service to the Person of Christ.”

My Baptismal promises, Confirmation, and Oath of Office have compelled me to speak up. A Catholic school cannot be Catholic if it is not faithful. Simply saying Jesus loves everyone does not mean Jesus condones sin. He loved and forgave the adulteress at the well, but he also told her to “go and sin no more” (John 8:11).

I have been told by “Catholics” that we have to “get with the modern times.” Ironically, Pope St. Pius X identified Modernism as the most dangerous threat to the Catholic Church, in part because, even as far back as 1907 (when his encyclical against the heresy of Modernism was written), Modernists “(belonged) to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself.” He said that “injury [to the Church] is the more certain,” because “the more intimate is their knowledge of her” as insiders.

We are at a critical crossroads. With modern media, the Internet, and the new gods of consumerism and relativism, our society is inundated with post-Christian elements which have a profound impact on those who identify as Christian. Terms like nominal catholic, non-practicing catholic, dissenting catholic are those on the “inside.” And non-believers and anti-catholics have united with those post-Christians to accommodate, change, and simply ignore our deposit of truths as explained by dogma, doctrine, and discipline.

The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church must speak with one voice and reject that which is not keeping with the Creed that the faithful recite at Mass.

No, the real heroes are the ones losing their lives for living their faith. The secular media would have you believe that the number is not high, but the fact remains: a lot of Christians are killed because they are Christians. I am only harassed, hated, and repudiated for the stand that I took against a gender ideology which is incompatible with the Christian anthropology of the human person – a stand that was twisted by the media and believed by those who needed someone on which to focus their hate.

Each one of us cannot simply take the comfort of the pew on a Sunday, and say nothing or do nothing about the attacks on our faith taking place all around us. Fr. Dwight Longenecker put it best for me: “First we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalize evil. Then we promote evil. Then we celebrate evil. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.”

I call it evil.

 

Michael Del Grande is a Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee.