A Tale of Two Junes

We are once again in the month of June – the sixth month of the year; the month during which we welcome the warm but pleasant days of summer; the month recognized for its roses through the familiar phrase “June roses,” bright sunshine and delightfully and brilliantly blue skies. June has always seemed something of a romantic month to me, even divorced from the famous concept of June weddings. If the world becomes alive during the spring months, June is the month during which all those things show off their liveliness.

If this month has always been dear to me for the spectacle of beauty put on by the natural world, it is only more so because it is the month dedicated to my favorite of all Catholic devotions: the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord. Even in spite of my love for June, there have been times when I have dreaded its coming because it presages the beginning of the busy summer season; but reminding myself to Whom this month is dedicated to by the Most Holy Catholic Church gives it an inevitable sweetness. As the month of May ends, every year I get a feeling of excitement as I turn the calendar towards June, if for no reason other than that it is the glorious month of the Sacred Heart.

Yet, in past years, there has been more than one reason for my dread of the month of June, and that is the meaning given to it by the secular world at large. June is the month of “pride.” June is the month of celebrating those who give in to the unnatural impulse of homosexuality, and of celebrating them proudly – without shame.

Any person with at least a modicum of knowledge of Catholic devotion will be quick to recognize the stark contrast between the meaning given to the month of June by the Catholic Church and that given it by the secular world. The core of the Sacred Heart devotion is the humility of Our Lord. The core of the devotion to degeneracy celebrated by the world – so to speak – is pride, the opposite of humility. How fitting an image of the contrast between the values of the world and those of God, these two different dedications of June. It is like the contrast between Heaven and hell itself.

In this year of Our Lord 2025, President Donald Trump of the United States of America called off all celebrations of “Pride Month” within the federal government, and re-dedicated the month publicly as “Veterans Month.” As a result of this and the general loss of steam we have seen continually in past years since June was twisted into the celebration of degeneracy by the world, I had expected, and hoped for, a break in LGBT propaganda being pushed into our faces for the entirety of 30 days – but I was wrong. Except, the first proclamation of “Pride Month” I heard this year came from the quarter I least expected it to – a priest.

Going in one of my ambles to LifeSite News’ website to read the headlines, I was faced with the title, “Fr. James Martin urges Catholics to celebrate LGBT ‘Pride Month.’” According to LifeSite, Fr. Martin wrote for his LGBT-friendly website, Outreach:

“For the religious person, this month is also a reminder that LGBTQ people are beloved children of God. Pride Month reminds Catholics to treat LGBTQ people with the “respect, compassion and sensitivity that the Catechism commands, the “closeness, compassion and tenderness” that Pope Francis has taught, and the love and mercy that Jesus showed to all people, especially those on the margins, during his public ministry.

It’s especially important for churches to mark Pride Month since much of the rejection that LGBTQ people have faced has been motivated by Christianity - at least what many people think Christianity teaches. An example: One of the most common reasons for homelessness among LGBTQ teens is that they have been kicked out of their families for ostensibly religious reasons.”
NO.

Such words coming from a priest of the Catholic Church are an abomination. Shame on you, Fr. Martin, for equating the month of the Sacred Heart with so-called “Pride Month.” Shame on you for encouraging people towards perdition, and not salvation, as is your duty as a priest and shepherd of souls. Shame on you for your actions, for encouraging people in committing sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance. May God have mercy on your soul if you do not repent.

I will repeat, as I did last June and later in another article: there is nothing compassionate or tender about leading a soul to hell. It will be a cold day in hell before any such thing is true. A soul is eternal, and it must end up in either Heaven or hell: Heaven, where it is saved, or hell where it is lost and will burn eternally in fire. Only if you do not believe in the existence of either of these places, or don’t care about it, will you term leading someone to the latter of these an act of mercy or compassion.

The very reason why we have such a thing as “Pride Month” at all, especially in the Church, is because we have lost the sense of the supernatural. We no longer believe in anything other than what we see. If we truly believed in eternal life – if we truly believed that God sent his Son to save us, that Christ – God Himself – died on the Cross out of mere love for our souls – we would not be giving ourselves over to displays and celebrations of degeneracy as that which is “Pride Month.” Because if we truly cared, if we truly believed, we would know that what matters is really not so much the “here,” as it is the “there.” What matters is not so much the journey, but the destination. But to arrive at your destination you first have to take the right path.

But, the thing is, we don’t believe in the supernatural anymore. Our thoughts have turned entirely to the human and the mundane. What matters is the here and now – that we be happy in this life. And thus acts that are cruel and abusive of souls are instead seen as acts of mercy and kindness, love and tenderness. Whereas before we would have been worried for peoples’ souls, we are now concerned with them being content on earth, because “life is short – enjoy it.”

And all for what? We know that people who live a degenerate life are never truly happy. We know for a fact that sin only digs a deeper hole that is harder to fill, and that can never be filled except by God. Sin does not make us happy because the soul was not created for perversity and wretchedness. It was created by God and for God, and it will never be happy without Him.

“Give a drunkard wine, and you will make him happy.” Yes, but only for a while. And even then, are you doing something good by promoting such a person in a habit that is ultimately destructive to themselves? Is there such a thing as goodness in providing a suicidal person with a knife? In a world such as we live in today, where people are murdered at whim through means such as euthanasia or abortion, the answer to these questions may not be as straightforward as they are and should be, but when viewed through the lens of Catholic teaching the answer is clear.

We need to think of sin as something real, not something abstract; something that has consequences – whether sooner or later – but consequences that do come to pass in the end; a true evil, not something made up or scary only in our imaginations. When our eyes and thoughts are geared towards eternal life, things such as sin become a real and true threat, because we can see how they affect us in the long run.

And so, dear readers, it is in this way that I urge you to not follow Fr. Martin’s urge to celebrate “Pride Month.” Instead, I invite you to use this most beautiful month of June to pray for each and every one of these people – these “members of the LGBTQ community” – and their conversion, that they may be able to find true happiness someday; but, especially, also, to pray for the conversion of men like James Martin, who use their rank in the Church for the perdition of souls, instead of their salvation. I realize how easy it is to build up resentment against these men, and anger against their evil deeds in this case would be just anger; however, we must remember that they, too, have souls, and that their souls are in even greater peril because of the importance of the duty they are disregarding. Furthermore, we must also pray for the conversion of these clerics out of mercy towards the souls they are misleading.

So, in this month of the Sacred Heart, let us humble ourselves by praying for those who may inspire resentment in us, as well as the poor souls living in as cruel and degenerate a sin as is the sin of homosexuality. Let us console the Sacred Heart of Our Lord, by repairing the offences committed against Him by those who have twisted His month into their own. But let us do so entirely with a spirit of humility, keeping in mind our own sins and making an effort to offend Our Lord in a lesser manner than before in our own lives, as well.