Rosary Rally Against Homosexual Parade in Rzeszów (Poland)
South-eastern part of Poland, called Podkarpacie, is considered as one of the most conservative part of the country. On the eve of the very first homosexual parade in the capital city of this region, Rzeszów, we organized a Rosary rally as a reparation for the sin of sodomy. We prayed on the Market Square near to Tadeusz Kościuszko’s monument. Seventy people participated, including young Catholics from patriotic societies, who received the latest issue of ‘Crusader’ (Krzyżowiec) magazine about how to react against blasphemies (Polish version).
During the campaign the leaflets were distributed addressing the following problems: 1) What is the sin of sodomy? 2) What is the reparation? 3) Why to pray publicly? 4) Why to pray Rosary?
The young people from patriotic societies (like All-Polish Youth) helped us to hand out these flyers to the public. Reactions to the campaign were rather mild, even though it was a Friday evening with many students having fun in their heads.
Two young girls when offered with a leaflet were rather reluctant to receive it. “Homosexual parade is all about love” – they try to persuade. “How about the pedophiles – should they also have a right to ‘love’ children?” was the question that put them into perplexity. They didn’t know what to answer. In the end, they thanked us for our action and calmly went away. This is how we introduced doubt in their mindsets.
There were many people sitting in the so-called “beer gardens”. Some of them claimed that the main square of Rzeszów is not a proper place to organize a public prayer. We weren’t discouraged at all! We know that the public sin needs a reparation that has to be public as well.
For the first time in the history of the Rosary rallies in Poland we managed to have the statue of Our Lady of Fatima present. Many people were moved by her realistic appearance. Some ladies even kissed the statue at its feet.
Before closing down the public action we distributed rosaries produced for the centenary of Fatima apparitions and leaflets against homosexuality from Family Research Institute (USA).
On the very next day local people from pro-life movement organized a Rosary rally against homosexual parade gathering around 130 people. They stayed with our flyers that remained after the campaign.