What a Queer Reading Finds in Catholic History

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 acknowledging the lives, experiences, and contributions of people whose identities, relationships, and expressions of devotion challenged accepted categories. From the frontlines of the AIDS crisis to Renaissance art workshops and medieval monasteries, a vibrant and complex history of gender expression, intimate relationships, and unconventional forms of devotion has always existed within Catholic history.

In this essay, I use queer not only as an identity but as a lens for reading history. A queer reading does not attempt to assign modern LGBTQ+ labels to historical figures whose experiences existed in different cultural contexts. Instead, it examines the places where history resists simple categories, where gender, relationships, bodies, devotion, and expressions of love do not fit neatly into the boundaries later societies have constructed. It asks what becomes visible when we pay attention to ambiguity, intimacy, nonconformity, and the experiences of people who lived beyond expected roles.

It is important to remember that modern categories of sexuality and gender are historically specific concepts that developed differently across cultures and time periods. The goal of a queer reading is therefore not to translate every historical person into contemporary identities, but to examine the ways people experienced intimacy, embodiment, spirituality, and social roles in contexts that often challenge modern assumptions.

A queer reading does not claim certainty where historical evidence is incomplete. Instead, it makes space for complexity, asking how people experienced faith, embodiment, relationships, and belonging within the worlds they inhabited.

Mercy During the AIDS Crisis

One of the clearest examples of this tension appears in the history of the AIDS epidemic and the Church’s response. I found myself trying to understand the gap between what was said publicly and what actually happened in practice. During the 1980s and early 1990s, public messaging surrounding AIDS was often shaped by fear, stigma, and moral language that deepened the suffering of people who were already dying (Herek & Glunt, 1988; Shilts, 1987). Yet at the same time, Catholic nurses, sisters, priests, and lay caregivers were sitting beside hospital beds and hospice rooms, caring for people whom much of society had abandoned.

Across cities like New York and San Francisco, Catholic hospitals and religious communities became important parts of the broader networks of care for people living with HIV/AIDS. Much of that work never made headlines. It was quiet, repetitive, profoundly human labor—feeding, bathing, cleaning wounds, holding hands, listening, and refusing to let people die alone.

Religious congregations such as the Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy, and Sisters of St. Joseph became quiet but powerful witnesses of mercy, continuing to care for patients who had often been rejected by family members or denied compassionate treatment elsewhere. Many nurses working within Catholic healthcare systems also risked criticism or misunderstanding as they advocated for care rooted in the conviction that every person possesses inherent dignity.

Their work did not erase the devastation of the epidemic, but it created small sanctuaries of humanity where fear gave way, even if only briefly, to mercy, accompaniment, and love (O’Loughlin, 2021; O’Loughlin, 2019–2020; Gould, 2009).

What struck me most was the disconnect between institutional rhetoric and lived faith. The Church was never speaking with only one voice. While official statements often reflected moral judgment, countless Catholics embodied something different through their actions. That realization was one of the first moments that made me stop reading Church history as a single, unified narrative (O’Loughlin, 2021; O’Loughlin, 2019–2020; Gould, 2009).

A Local Story of Mercy: Yeona DaCosta-Auld

Even here in my own region, that story unfolded in remarkable ways. In Small Town Rage: Fighting Back in the Deep South, Dr. David W. Hylan (2026) recounts the work of nurse Yeona DaCosta-Auld, whose Catholic nursing formation shaped her care for HIV/AIDS patients at LSU Medical Center’s Nine Tower unit in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Working alongside Dr. Marcus “Marc” Spurlock—one of only two physicians in the city consistently treating people with AIDS—DaCosta-Auld deliberately set aside unnecessary layers of protective equipment when greeting patients, choosing to meet them face-to-face rather than through barriers of plastic. Families often waited for her shift before allowing anyone else to care for their loved ones.

She bathed the dying, listened to their fear and anger, and refused to let them slip away alone. In a city where stigma frequently overshadowed compassion, she quietly embodied the Gospel’s call to accompany those whom others had forgotten (Hylan, 2026).

Her witness reminds us that, even amid institutional tension and public fear, mercy often found its most authentic expression not through official declarations, but through the hands of those willing to remain present.

The AIDS crisis was not an isolated moment of tension between institutional teaching and lived compassion. When I began looking further back into Catholic history, I found similar complexities appearing again and again: in the lives of saints, mystics, artists, and communities whose experiences did not always fit neatly within the categories later imposed upon them.

From there I went into saints, mystics, devotional traditions, and Renaissance art. Hildegard of Bingen. Joan of Arc. Francis of Assisi. Perpetua and Felicity. Madre Juana de la Cruz. And then Michelangelo and the world he was working in.

Photos from the Small Town Rage: Fighting Back in the Deep South book signing with Dr. Robert “Bobby” Darrow, nurse Yeona DaCosta-Auld, and author Dr. David W. Hylan. Alongside their stories are images honoring Catholic caregivers and ACT UP activists who fought for dignity, healthcare, and visibility during the AIDS crisis.

Michelangelo and the Language of the Body

Michelangelo is where art history becomes very direct about something it does not always say plainly.

Scholars do not reduce him to modern identity labels, but they do take his emotional and poetic language seriously. His sonnets addressed to Tommaso dei Cavalieri use the language of devotion, admiration, and longing directed toward another man. In Renaissance studies, these relationships are often examined within the broader context of homosocial culture, where intense emotional bonds between men existed alongside systems of education, patronage, friendship, and artistic mentorship (Rocke, 1996; Saslow, 1986).

And in his art, the male body is not background. It is the focus.

David is not simply a biblical figure. It is an exposed study of idealized masculine form. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is filled with bodies that are straining, twisting, reaching, falling, and becoming something larger than themselves. The Last Judgment turns the human body into motion, pressure, vulnerability, and transformation. Even when the subject is theological, the body itself carries much of the emotional weight.

Women are present, but they are often treated differently. They are less frequently given the same sustained anatomical focus or physical idealization. Renaissance visual culture, shaped by classical revival and ideas about ideal form, repeatedly placed the male body at the center of beauty, virtue, and artistic achievement (Campbell & Cole, 2012).

Other artists in Florence and beyond worked within the same cultural environment. The male nude became central to artistic training, workshop practice, and classical imitation. Historians such as Michael Rocke have also shown that same-sex relationships and desires existed within those same civic and artistic spaces, even when they were regulated, concealed, or expressed through different cultural language than we would use today (Rocke, 1996).

Saint Sebastian sits directly within this visual world. His body becomes one of the most repeatedly depicted male forms in Christian art: wounded, exposed, vulnerable, and beautiful. Over time, the image accumulated meanings beyond its original martyr narrative, becoming a figure interpreted through ideas of suffering, devotion, beauty, and embodied longing (Saslow, 1986).

So it is not that there is a hidden message.

It is that the body itself becomes a language.

Sacred Lives Beyond Fixed Categories

Francis of Assisi: Maternal Spirituality and Sacred Care

Francis of Assisi is remembered for poverty, simplicity, and radical love of creation, but early Franciscan writings reveal a richer spiritual imagination than is often recognized.

Francis frequently used maternal language to describe spiritual care and community. He referred to himself through the image of a mother and encouraged his friars to understand themselves as mothers to one another, nurturing, protecting, and caring for their brothers with compassion. In Franciscan writings, spiritual leadership is not defined only through authority or power, but through tenderness, vulnerability, service, and self-giving love. Francis described the relationships within his community using the language of family and care, encouraging his brothers to become sources of nourishment and support for one another.

Francis’s use of maternal language reveals a medieval understanding of holiness that valued tenderness, vulnerability, protection, and care as sacred expressions of divine love. For Francis, these qualities were not limited to one gendered experience but were essential parts of how Christians were called to love and serve one another.

Francis’s devotion to the Virgin Mary was also central to this vision. By honoring Mary as the Mother of God, Francis connected holiness with nurturing presence as much as with strength or authority. His spirituality expanded traditional ideas of religious virtue by making room for tenderness as a powerful form of spiritual leadership (Bonaventure, ca. 1263/2005).

Hildegard of Bingen: Mysticism Beyond Simple Categories

Hildegard of Bingen is equally difficult to pin down.

She was an abbess, mystic, composer, physician, natural philosopher, theologian, and one of the most influential women of the Middle Ages. Her visions shaped theology, medicine, music, and the arts, while her correspondence reveals remarkably intimate spiritual relationships.

Her letters to Richardis von Stade, written after Richardis was transferred to another monastery, express profound grief, longing, and emotional vulnerability. Hildegard mourned the separation deeply and described the loss in language that reveals the intensity of their bond.

Whether understood as spiritual friendship, profound emotional attachment, or a relationship that resists easy definition, Hildegard and Richardis’s bond reveals the depth and complexity of medieval expressions of love and devotion. Their correspondence reminds us that intimacy has always existed in many forms, and that relationships within religious communities could carry deep emotional and spiritual significance (Bynum, 1987).

Joan of Arc: Holiness, Clothing, and the Gendered Body

Joan of Arc is shaped by the body from the very beginning of her story.

Throughout her trial, church authorities repeatedly questioned not only her visions but also her clothing, appearance, and refusal to conform to expected gender roles. Her decision to wear men’s clothing became central evidence against her, revealing anxieties about gender, authority, and social order.

Joan’s body became a place where questions about obedience, femininity, power, and religious authority were debated. Her clothing was not treated as a minor detail; it became a symbol of whether she was following or disrupting the expectations placed upon women.

Even after her canonization centuries later, Joan continues to embody the complicated relationship between holiness and gender nonconformity. Her story reminds us that institutions have often attempted to regulate bodies as much as beliefs, especially when individuals disrupt expected roles (Warner, 1981).

Perpetua and Felicity: Companionship in the Face of Death

Perpetua and Felicity are usually remembered as early Christian martyrs, yet their story is also one of profound companionship.

Imprisoned together in Carthage during the persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire, they faced torture and execution side by side. During their imprisonment, Felicity gave birth while Perpetua encouraged and comforted her. Their account is marked not only by courage before death but by mutual care, shared suffering, and unwavering solidarity.

Their story is significant because it presents holiness as something lived through relationship. Their faith was not expressed only through individual sacrifice, but through the bonds they maintained with one another during suffering.

Their witness suggests that sanctity is often found not only in heroic acts, but in relationships sustained through hardship (The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, ca. 203/2012).

Madre Juana de la Cruz: Mysticism and Shifting Voices

Madre Juana de la Cruz’s writings challenge the idea that religious identity, authority, and embodiment have always existed within fixed categories. A Spanish Franciscan tertiary and visionary preacher of the late medieval period, Juana became known for her mystical sermons, in which she moved between voices and perspectives in ways that complicated traditional understandings of gender, authority, and the relationship between the human and the divine.

In her sermons, Juana sometimes spoke in the voice of Christ, sometimes as herself, and sometimes through other heavenly figures. This shifting movement between identities allowed her to embody forms of spiritual authority that were not limited by the social expectations placed upon women of her time. Her mystical expression created a space where voice, body, and identity could become fluid vessels for divine communication.

A queer reading of Juana’s work does not require assigning her a modern identity label. Instead, it recognizes the ways her spirituality disrupted fixed assumptions about who could speak with authority, how identity could be expressed, and how the sacred could move through different forms of embodiment.

Her writings reveal a medieval spiritual world where transformation and complexity were not signs of contradiction, but ways of encountering the divine. Juana’s life and work challenge modern readers to consider how religious traditions have always included people whose experiences crossed expected boundaries of gender, voice, and identity (Surtz, 1990; Boon & Surtz, 2016).

The Madonna of Montevergine: A Sanctuary of Refuge

The Madonna of Montevergine, affectionately known as Mamma Schiavona (“Black Madonna” or “Dark Mother”), occupies a unique place in southern Italian devotion.

According to devotional tradition, she is associated with a story in which two men condemned after being discovered in a same-sex relationship were rescued. Whether understood as history, legend, or devotional memory, the story has contributed to the Madonna of Montevergine becoming a symbol of refuge for people who have experienced exclusion elsewhere.

The Sanctuary of Montevergine in Campania has, over generations, become a place where marginalized communities seek prayer, belonging, and recognition. LGBTQ+ pilgrims and members of Naples’ femminielli community have participated in the annual Juta dei Femminielli, a pilgrimage connected to devotion, celebration, and communal identity (Miano Borruso, 2011). Contemporary documentation of this pilgrimage, including Ruairi Glasheen’s documentary Rhythms of Italy: Mamma Schiavona, highlights the continued relationship between the Madonna of Montevergine, folk Catholic devotion, music, and the femminielli tradition (Glasheen, 2024).

The tradition surrounding Montevergine demonstrates how religious devotion often develops through the lived experiences of communities. Shrines and saints are not only shaped by official theology; they are also shaped by the people who gather, pray, and find meaning there.

For many LGBTQ+ Catholics and Italian devotees, Mamma Schiavona represents a sacred presence that does not turn away those who have known rejection. Rather, she has become a figure of refuge, belonging, and compassion within a tradition that continues to evolve through the people who carry it forward.

The Public Universal Friend: Religion Beyond the Gender Binary

Then there is the Public Universal Friend, born Jemima Wilkinson in eighteenth-century America.

After a near-death illness in 1776, Wilkinson declared that Jemima Wilkinson had died and that the body was now inhabited by a spirit sent by God. The Public Universal Friend rejected their birth name and rejected conventional gender categories, asking others not to refer to them through conventional categories of man or woman.

The Friend traveled throughout the northeastern United States preaching repentance, spiritual renewal, equality, and celibacy. They gathered followers and eventually established a religious community centered around their teachings.

While modern identity terms should not be imposed directly onto historical figures, the Public Universal Friend remains one of the earliest documented examples in American history of a religious leader who publicly lived outside the gender binary. Their life challenges assumptions about what religious authority, embodiment, and spiritual leadership were allowed to look like.

The Friend’s story reveals that questions of gender, identity, and religious expression did not begin in the modern era. Human beings have long negotiated the relationship between the body they were given, the social categories available to them, and the ways they understood themselves before God.

Scripture and Unexpected Forms of Love

There are also moments in scripture that resist simple categories and invite us to reconsider how we understand identity, belonging, relationships, and human connection. A queer reading of scripture does not require forcing modern identities onto ancient texts. Instead, it asks us to pay attention to the moments where biblical stories complicate expectations about gender, family, intimacy, and who is welcomed into the community.

Ruth and Naomi

Ruth and Naomi are often read as a story of loyalty between family members, but their relationship also challenges simple ideas about belonging and chosen family.

Naomi is an older widow, Ruth her daughter-in-law, and after grief and displacement reshape both of their lives, Ruth chooses to remain with Naomi rather than return to her own people. She declares:

“Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16–17).

Their relationship is built through commitment, mutual care, and shared survival. Ruth’s devotion is not based on obligation alone, but on a profound choice to bind her life to another person. The story expands ideas of family by showing that belonging can be created through loyalty, love, and covenant rather than only through biological ties.

A queer reading notices the importance of this chosen relationship and asks how scripture portrays bonds that exist outside ordinary social expectations.

David and Jonathan

The relationship between David and Jonathan is another passage that has drawn attention because of the intensity of its emotional language.

Jonathan loves David “as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1), and their covenant with one another is described with extraordinary devotion. After Jonathan’s death, David mourns him, saying:

“Your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:26).

Interpretations of their relationship vary widely among scholars and religious traditions. Some understand their bond as a profound friendship shaped by loyalty and political covenant, while others see the language as reflecting a deeper emotional intimacy. A queer reading does not require a single conclusion, but it does take seriously the depth of affection expressed between two men in the biblical text.

The significance is that scripture preserves a relationship described through the language of love, devotion, and grief without reducing it to simple categories.

The Ethiopian Eunuch

The story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts represents another moment where scripture challenges assumptions about who belongs.

In the ancient world, eunuchs occupied complicated social positions connected to gender, sexuality, status, and religious participation. Because of restrictions found in earlier Jewish law regarding eunuchs entering the assembly of Israel (Deuteronomy 23:1), the Ethiopian eunuch’s encounter with Philip carries particular significance.

After hearing the message of Jesus, the eunuch asks:

“What is to prevent me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36).

Philip baptizes them immediately.

The story does not present belonging as something earned after becoming more acceptable. Instead, inclusion comes first. The Ethiopian eunuch enters the community without being asked to erase the aspects of their identity that made them different within the society around them.

For many readers, this passage has become a powerful example of divine welcome extending beyond social boundaries.

Jesus and Expanding Kinship

Even Jesus repeatedly challenges narrow understandings of family and belonging.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus expands the idea of kinship beyond biological relationships and toward spiritual connection and shared commitment. When asked about his family, Jesus responds:

“Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50).

Rather than rejecting family, Jesus broadens it. Belonging becomes something created through love, faithfulness, and relationship.

This theme appears throughout his ministry as he repeatedly centers people who exist at the margins of society: the poor, the sick, foreigners, women, and those considered outsiders. His teachings challenge communities to reconsider who is welcomed and who is valued.

Taken together, these stories reveal a biblical tradition that is more complex than simple categories often allow. They show relationships shaped by devotion, people welcomed despite social boundaries, and communities expanded through unexpected forms of belonging.

The questions raised by these histories are not confined to the distant past. They continue within contemporary Catholic communities, where LGBTQ Catholics and clergy continue navigating questions of identity, vocation, and belonging.

Contemporary Catholic Voices

The stories of LGBTQ Catholic priests reveal the ongoing complexity between official conversations about sexuality and the lived experiences of people within the Church. Their lives demonstrate that Catholic identity is not experienced only through doctrine or institutional statements, but also through relationships, communities, ministry, and personal encounters with God.

Fr. James Martin

Fr. James Martin has become one of the most visible Catholic voices advocating for greater pastoral accompaniment of LGBTQ Catholics. Through his writing and ministry, he has emphasized dialogue, dignity, and the importance of recognizing LGBTQ Catholics as members of the Church who deserve compassion and welcome.

His approach focuses less on winning arguments and more on building relationships. For many LGBTQ Catholics, his work represents an attempt to create space for conversation within a Church where questions of sexuality, identity, and belonging remain deeply contested (Martin, 2017).

Fr. Gregory Greiten

Fr. Gregory Greiten, a Catholic priest in Milwaukee, publicly came out as gay in 2017 while continuing his priestly ministry. His decision to speak openly about his identity brought attention to the experiences of LGBTQ clergy who have often lived within tension between personal identity, vocation, and institutional expectations.

What makes Greiten’s story significant is not only that he came out, but that he remained committed to parish ministry and experienced support from many members of his community. His story highlights the difference that can exist between public debates about LGBTQ Catholics and the relationships formed within actual faith communities (Greiten, 2017).

Fr. Aidan McAleenan

Fr. Aidan McAleenan, a Catholic priest in Oakland, has spoken publicly about his experience as a gay priest and about the relationship between identity, faith, and ministry. In sharing his story, McAleenan described his decision to come out to his parish community while continuing his priestly vocation, emphasizing the connection between authenticity, pastoral service, and his calling as a priest (McAleenan, 2024).

Like other LGBTQ Catholics navigating life within the Church, his experience reflects the complexity of holding together personal identity, religious vocation, and belonging within a tradition that continues to debate questions of sexuality. His story also illustrates a recurring theme throughout Catholic history: the difference between institutional conversations and lived experience. Communities are shaped not only by official teachings, but also by the everyday relationships of care, acceptance, and accompaniment formed among people of faith (McAleenan, 2024).

Continuing the Tradition of Lived Faith

The experiences of these priests reflect the same tension found throughout Catholic history. From Catholic nurses caring for people dying of AIDS, to saints and mystics whose lives challenged expectations, to modern clergy navigating identity and vocation, the story of Catholicism has always included people living within complexity.

The Church’s history is not only the history of its official institutions. It is also the history of the people who have prayed, served, struggled, and sought belonging within it.

A Tradition More Complex Than Its Boundaries

Ultimately, the history of the Church is shaped not only by councils, bishops, and official teaching, but also by the ordinary people who lived their faith.

The Church has never spoken with only one voice.

Its history contains tension: doctrine and devotion, institution and community, boundaries and belonging.

When we look beyond institutional documents alone, we find a tradition that is often more diverse, more emotionally complex, and more difficult to categorize than official narratives suggest.

It exists in the quiet mercy of Catholic nurses during the AIDS crisis, in the devotion of saints and mystics, in the bodies preserved in Renaissance art, in the companionship of ancient martyrs, in the songs of pilgrims at Montevergine, and in the lives of people who continued searching for God while living beyond expected boundaries.

A queer reading of Catholic history does not erase tradition.

Instead, it reveals more of it.

It asks us to pay attention to the people whose lives have always existed at the edges of categories—the people whose devotion, love, bodies, and communities remind us that human experience has always been more complicated than the systems created to define it.

A visual exploration of saints, mystics, biblical figures, and artworks that reveal the complexity of gender, love, devotion, embodiment, and belonging throughout Catholic history.

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