Family Pride Parade to be held on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro
The parade has the support of the archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal Orani João Tempesta. / Credit: Francisco Anzola, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons ACI Digital, Aug 9, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The first Family Pride Parade will take place on Saturday, Aug. 10, the day before Father’s Day in Brazil, on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro starting at 9 a.m. local time. The parade is an initiative of the National Network in Defense of Life and Family and aims to celebrate the sacredness of the family.
“Defending life from conception to natural death is a fundamental value that all families must protect,” Zezé Luz, the founder and executive president of the National Network in Defense of Life and Family, wrote on Facebook, inviting families to take part in the parade dressed in white T-shirts and carrying colorful balloons.
The archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal Orani João Tempesta, emphasized in a video that “it is very important for those who seek to be a family, and especially a Christian family, to come together and show the world how we want to live and be.” For him, the Family Pride Parade “is our freedom of expression.”
According to Zezé Luz, the first Family Pride Parade will be “a peaceful, nonpartisan and supra-religious demonstration” as well as “a moment of unity, prayer, and action” in which people who believe in the family will be able to show their “commitment to the dignity and respect for the life of all children, including the most defenseless.”
The parade will also take place on Aug. 17 in other cities in Brazil, such as Brasilia and Florianópolis.
Zezé Luz, is a mother, family counselor, pro-life activist and Catholic singer. In 1986, at age 19, she had an abortion after being raped in her hometown of Campina Grande. After that, she lived with the physical and psychological consequences of her act for about 15 years. In her mission to defend life, from 2004 to the present, she has saved more than 2,000 babies from abortion.
The parade will also take place on Aug. 17 in other cities in Brazil, such as Brasilia and Florianópolis.
This story was first published by ACI Digital, CNA’s Portuguese-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by ACI Prensa and CNA.
