Prayerful Procession at Dodger Stadium
by Robert B. Tarn, Grand Knight, Knights of Columbus Council #8072
June 16, 2023
The Los Angeles Dodgers planned to honor a hate group at Dodger Stadium during their annual “Pride Night” event on June 16, 2023, in conjunction with a game against the San Francisco Giants.
The hate group, known as “The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”, practice wildly offensive and blasphemous mockery of Christianity in general and Catholic consecrated sisters in particular.

Knights of Columbus Council #8072 serves St. Jude the Apostle and St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Churches in Westlake Village, California.
VIN SCULLY:
Vin Scully was our friend and a regular parishioner at St. Jude. Last August, St. Jude hosted Vin’s family, friends, and the L. A. Dodgers at his Funeral Mass.
We believe that Vin would not have tolerated this indignity. We felt compelled to be “Vin’s Voice” in order to tell the L. A. Dodgers how extremely offensive this hate group is and how insulting it would be to all Christians for the L. A. Dodgers to honor them.

In the weeks leading to the L. A. Dodgers “Pride Night”, and with the support of our pastors, we gathered a thousand signatures from parishioners, endorsing letters that were mailed to the L. A. Dodgers. CatholicVote and other catholic groups organized a “Prayerful Procession at Dodger Stadium”, to begin hours before the Dodger game against the Giants. We loaded up our council banner and went there.
When we arrived, speeches and testimonials were being presented on an elevated stage to at least 2,000 people assembled in Dodger Stadium Parking Lot 13. We were dressed in Knights of Columbus shirts and hats, wore council name badges, and proudly carried our 10-foot council banner.

It was hard not to recognize us as Knights of Columbus. We heard someone shout out “The Knights of Columbus are here!” and several event organizers thanked us for being there.
We started getting a lot more attention when we mentioned that St. Jude was Vin Scully’s parish. People wanted to have their photo taken with us (actually, with the banner; we just happened to be holding it). Tommy Valentine (white shirt in photo below), an author with CatholicVote and one of the event’s featured speakers, interviewed us.



We must have looked as though we were about to lead a marching band in the Pasadena Rose Parade.
The event organizers, apparently noticing this, asked if we would lead the prayerful procession with Bishop Joseph Strickland. “Of course,” we replied, “we are here to serve.”
Here we are, ready to begin the procession, which would first wind around the event venue.

After encircling the venue, the procession proceeded out to follow Stadium Way for a short distance to stadium entrance Gate A.
After which it proceeded down Vin Scully Avenue to its intersection with Sunset Boulevard. For most of that procession, Bishop Strickland had with him a reliquary containing a relic of Saint John Paul II.
True to our Christian faith and values, the procession was entirely peaceful and was intended as an act of reparation for offenses committed against Jesus Christ and all Christians by the L. A. Dodgers and “The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”.
The Dodgers, true to their name, dodged an opportunity to do the right thing that night, losing the respect of millions of Christians. They also lost the game against the San Francisco Giants.
The next day, apparently in a “funk” after seeing the morning news about our prayerful procession, the Dodger players had their worst home shutout loss in team history with a 15-0 blowout. They went on to lose all three games of the series, for which we may assume Saint Francis of Assisi (a.k.a., San Francisco) was well pleased.
Robert Tarn can be reached at robert.tarn@kofc8072.org
Copyright 2023, Robert B. Tarn. All rights reserved. No distribution without written permission.