Looking at pictures of the June 10 homosexual demonstration in São Paulo, Brazil, I asked myself how large might the combined populations of Sodom and Gomorrah have been. Each city certainly could not have had more than a few thousand inhabitants.
Promoters of the São Paulo “gay pride parade” claim more than three million either participated or watched from the sidewalks, making it the world’s largest such event. The number is undoubtedly exaggerated since the boulevard simply could not fit that many people. However, there is no denying that a considerable crowd of perhaps one million was present. Photographs show a whole 1.6 mile section of the Avenida Paulista filled with people.
Thus, it is most certain that the number of those who went to proclaim “pride” in the practice of vice or to entertain themselves watching a public proclamation of this “pride” was much greater than the population of both Sodom and Gomorrah.
The biblical narration does not speak of similar parades in the two cities. Its silence in this regard leads one to think that such demonstrations were reserved for our sad times.
This is understandable. Corruptio optimi pessima, that is to say, the corruption of the best is the worst. When those who climb higher slip, the force of gravity makes them fall even lower.
This is why that which Prophet Isaias says of the king of Babylon is attributed to Satan: “How have you fallen from the heavens, O morning star, son of the dawn! How are you cut down to the ground, you who mowed down the nations!”1
When one rejects Our Lord Jesus Christ and his gentle yoke,2 one falls under the tyranny of the worst passions.
Weeping over the cities that rejected him, Our Lord exclaimed:
“And thou Capharnaum, shalt thou be exalted up to heaven? Thou shalt go down even unto hell. For if in Sodom had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in thee, perhaps it had remained unto this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.”3
Brazil had the grace to be founded as a Catholic nation. From the Portuguese who discovered and colonized her, Brazil received its culture, language, customs and, above all, the ineffable gift of the Faith.
São Paulo itself was founded by the Jesuits. Around their college where they catechized the curumins (the Indian children), the city grew and prospered. In the 1930’s, the city had a powerful Marian movement led by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, who later founded the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP).
Then came the crisis inside the Church, the triumph of “liberation theology,” and the abandonment of an evangelization aimed at the salvation of souls and the triumph of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Good Catholic formation was replaced with class struggle, the formation of leftist rural and urban agitators, the spreading of Basic Christian Communities and so on. Leftist Catholic activity later developed into the backbone of the socialist Workers Party now in power.
Abandoned, many of the sheep left the fold and began to listen to other shepherds. They were an easy prey to the devastating effects of the sexual revolution of the sixties that later paved the way for homosexual propaganda in schools, television, fashions and other media.
While many clerics clamored for “social reform,” they maintained an inexplicable silence regarding important points of Catholic morals.
There was a general exodus from the Catholic Church to other religions. Above all, Brazil saw an ever more accentuated surge in irreligiousness.
The result is what one sees today: the Avenida Paulista, the symbolic central avenue of a once Catholic city, is invaded by a huge crowd which, by gestures, attitudes and slogans, proclaim its apostasy from those Catholic and natural morals that are inscribed on the hearts of all men.
As was said, that crowd, whose attitude would make even pagans blush, was much larger in number than the combined population of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Nevertheless, Sodom and Gomorrah were punished by Providence. “And the Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous. I will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry that is come to me: or whether it be not so, that I may know.”4
In spite of Lot’s intercession, once the inhabitants of Sodom tried to molest the angels sent by God (believing they were men) fire rained down from heaven.
“The sun was risen upon the earth, and Lot entered into Segor. And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he destroyed these cities and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth.”5
While I certainly pray that this does not happen to São Paulo, these are a few reflections that occur to me as a Brazilian looking at the pictures and reading the news about the incredible homosexual “pride” parade held in that city on the Sunday of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.