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Pagan Pride Day Sparks Concerns
Catholic Courier-Diocese of Rochester, NY
Jennifer Burke/Catholic Courier
August 2004
When Martha O'Donnell learned that Finger Lakes Pagan Pride
planned to hold a festival in Canandaigua's Baker Park August 28,
2004 she was concerned. O'Donnell – a parishioner of St. Patrick's
Parish in Victor with relatives who attend St. Mary's in Canandaigua –
feared the festival might lure vulnerable children, teens and young
adults away from the Catholic faith.
O'Donnell's concerns are understandable and valid, noted Father
Joseph A. Hart, a diocesan vicar general and moderator of the
Pastoral Center. According to literature he's seen, the largest
group of people who "drop out" of church are between the ages of 16
and 22, often in an effort to differentiate themselves from their
parents by subconsciously rejecting their parents' values. Becoming
a pagan, he said, could be a way for such young people to exercise
their inborn religious instincts while rejecting parental values.
The second-largest group of church drop-outs are people between
the ages of 18 and 30, he said. Their problems with the church stem
from moral teaching – often regarding sexuality – and they often feel
so guilty that they leave Catholicism in search of a religion that
won't make them feel that guilt.
Parents can combat such rejections of the Catholic Church by
helping their children to grow close to God, and encouraging them to
have conversations with God, Father Hart said. A person who has a
close relationship with God is less likely to turn away from him and
his teaching, he added.
"The rejection often comes more from people who have only
superficially known Christianity but have not come to know the Lord,"
Father Hart said.
Father Thomas Mull, pastor of St. Mary's in Canandaigua, shared
Father Hart's sentiments.
"Is (the festival) going to take people away?" he asked
rhetorically. "By and large if they're going to be lured away, they
wanted to be lured away."
Shelly O'Brien, media director of Finger Lakes Pagan Pride,
stressed that the festival, called Finger Lakes Pagan Pride Day, is
not intended to recruit people to pagan traditions. It is instead an
opportunity for community members to become aware of what local
pagans are doing and for pagans to give back to the community, she
said.
O'Brien said the festival presents an opportunity for pagans to
let the community know "what we do is not scary, that it is earth-
based."
The festival is obviously geared toward pagans, O'Brien noted,
although anyone may attend. The price of admission in one
nonperishable food item, which the group plans to donate to the
Social Ministry Food Cupboard at St. Mary's in Canandaigua.
Several Finger Lakes-area Catholics said they felt the food
cupboard should not accept the food donation. Father Mull disagreed,
noting the cupboard provides food for any of the area's poor, not for
just poor Catholics. The food cupboard also receives donations from
organizations representing various faiths, so rejection of this new
donation would be inconsistent with current practices, he added.
"Anyone that wants to give us food, we'll take it, as long as
it's good food and not spoiled." Father Mull said. "It doesn't make
much sense to say that Protestant food is OK, Catholic food is OK,
but pagan food is not."
Finger Lakes Pagan Pride works under the auspices of the
International Pagan Pride Project, whose mission is to foster pride
in pagan identity through education, activism, charity and
community. Although this is the first time Pagan Pride Day will take
place in the Finger Lakes, similar celebrations have previously
occurred in Elmira, Ithaca and Rochester.
Modern pagan and neo-pagan religions encompass many earth-based
spiritual practices, including Wicca—which honors single or multiple
deities and whose followers use magic – and druidism, which
integrates religion with the healing arts, ecology awareness, psychic
development and artistic expression.
"The best way to treat any religious way of life is to look at
its beliefs, worship, ethical imperatives and communal organization,"
observed Dr. Nathan Kollar, professor of religious studies at St.
John Fisher College. "If we put anything or anyone in place of God
we endanger ourself and our society."
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