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As a Gen Xer, seeing the Pride flag in front of any school is always moving because such a thing would have been impossible during my now ancient 鈥� but not actually that long ago 鈥� younger days. That the rainbow flag flies at all in front of any Catholic school seems like a miracle to me, though perhaps not the kind that the Church currently recognizes.

A miracle because, as the product of 13 years of Ontario Catholic schooling (long live OAC and Grade 13), I attended schools where there wasn鈥檛 a hint of anything gay, other than slurs, innuendo and bullying. The flags, as mildly symbolic as they are, are a big step to my eyes.

To be absolutely clear, there were gay folk in my Catholic school 鈥� like me 鈥� but everyone who might have evolved in some natural way as teenagers kept it deeply under wraps for self-preservation. After graduation it was like daffodils popping up during April, one after another through the late 1990s and into the 2000s as society became more accepting. Sometimes it was the kids who, in retrospect, might have seemed a little queer. Other times it was a surprise, like a jock or the school valedictorian. All could finally be themselves.

Once out of high school, and often after leaving home, people blossomed, but I often think about how much suppression there was during that time. It鈥檚 why the flag matters. High school can be harsh and mean, so signs that everyone belongs are important, even small ones. More grimly, have found that 鈥渢houghts of suicide and suicide-related behaviours are more frequent among 2SLGBTQI+ youth in comparison to their non-LGBTQ peers.鈥� Flying a flag won鈥檛 fix that, but it鈥檚 a start.

When Pope Francis passed away, I thought of those rainbow flags at 海角社区官网schools and that one of the reasons they鈥檙e able to be flown today is because he inched open the door a bit where the more conservative John Paul II didn鈥檛 and arch-conservative Pope Benedict XVI after him tried to add more locks to the door.

There鈥檚 a lot to admire about the Catholic school system in Ontario because it is often filled with amazing teachers and staff. I recall two of my high school religion teachers, one in Grade 10 who went on about how we should practice “agape,” an unconditional Christian love for everyone, and the teacher in Grade 11 who invited us to his summer solstice backyard party. A pagan event, John Paul II might not have approved of that one. These kinds of people are still in the system.

It鈥檚 complicated, you see. The Church and all of its institutions may be a top-down monolith, but inside it there are good things and good people just as there are hostile ones. Take Romero House,

A decade ago I asked Mary Jo Leddy, a Catholic theologian who founded Romero House in 1991, why she chose to work within the Catholic Church that was hostile to this kind of activism at the time. 鈥淭he Church provided a scaffolding for the work,鈥� she told me. She could do things inside the Church that would be more difficult outside, as counterintuitive as that sounds.

I asked, because I found my general support for the Catholic school system crumbling as some boards became more actively hostile to LGBTQ+ students, moving from a passive, closeted kind of place, to one that actively bans rainbow flags. I realized that my own time in the system was pleasant because nobody pushed the boundaries as many young adults are rightfully doing now.

Pope Francis鈥檚 successor is important as the next pontiff may push for more reforms, more acceptance 鈥� more agape even. We might see more Ontario Catholic schools flying the rainbow flag in coming years.

That鈥檚 a good thing, but active bans on symbols that make students feel safe in publicly funded schools should force a conversation about whether Ontario should be funding them at all.