I didn’t set out to find a hidden history, but I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on LGBTQ+ history within the Catholic Church, and I keep ending up in places I didn’t expect. While official Catholic teachings have often drawn boundaries around questions of sexuality, gender, and relationships, the historical record tells a much more complicated story.The deeper you look into the Church’s past, the harder it becomes to tell the story of Catholicism without also acknowle

As a queer person, I never imagined I would one day write a letter to the Pope. Yet there I was, sitting at my computer, addressing an institution that once caused me profound pain. For much of my life, Catholicism felt like a door that stayed closed. I grew up in it. I made my First Communion. I knew its prayers, its rhythms, its silence. It was part of my family, my culture, my inheritance. But as I came to understand myself, I also absorbed the message, spoken or implied,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the psychological idea of integration, or the process of bringing different parts of ourselves into a more coherent whole. Lately, though, I find myself drawn to a different word: reconciling. I feel like I am in a major period of reconciliation right now. I am working on reconciling my heritage and spirituality by attending Mass again. I am reconciling the younger version of myself with the person I am becoming as I prepare to enter the counsel

I’ve been thinking a lot about Saint Thomas the Apostle, AKA “Doubting Thomas.” I’ve talked about my current spiritual journey back toward Catholicism and my experience attending Mass in other posts, but I wanted to share some thoughts. I don’t fully agree with all of the Church’s dogma, but I’ve found myself drawn to something else entirely: its tradition, metaphor, art, history, mysticism, and heritage, all woven together into something that feels lived rather than purely i