The National Sacrament of Pride Month

Pride Month has a sacramental character to it, if you look hard enough.

A sacrament — from the Latin word sacramentum, a translation of the Greek word mysterion, meaning “hidden thing” or “mystery” — is a ritual with both physical and metaphysical components. Consider, to use a papist analogy, how the physical bread takes on the metaphysical substance of the Body of Christ in the celebration of the Eucharist. It’s not one-to-one, of course, but Pride Month is similarly sacramental — the marches, advertisements, and rainbowed corporate logos are the raw materials. Yet Pride Month has a deeper symbolic meaning, one that explains its status as a high holiday on the American liturgical calendar. Pride, that vice the Book of Sirach calls the “beginning of all sin,” is now the centerpiece of a monthlong celebration of the liberated individual’s triumph over the repressive collective.

About the Author

John Hirschauer

John Hirschauer is a former William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow in Political Journalism at National Review Institute.

Pride Month has a sacramental character to it, if you look hard enough.

A sacrament — from the Latin word sacramentum, a translation of the Greek word mysterion, meaning “hidden thing” or “mystery” — is a ritual with both physical and metaphysical components. Consider, to use a papist analogy, how the physical bread takes on the metaphysical substance of the Body of Christ in the celebration of the Eucharist. It’s not one-to-one, of course, but Pride Month is similarly sacramental — the marches, advertisements, and rainbowed corporate logos are the raw materials. Yet Pride Month has a deeper symbolic meaning, one that explains its status as a high holiday on the American liturgical calendar. Pride, that vice the Book of Sirach calls the “beginning of all sin,” is now the centerpiece of a monthlong celebration of the liberated individual’s triumph over the repressive collective.