I didn’t expect the conclave to hit me this hard.
I’m not someone who typically tracks every move in the Vatican, nor do I pretend the church has ever made much space for people like me. But as the white smoke draws near, I find myself reckoning with wounds I thought I’d long buried—and with a cautious hope for what might come next.
I’m a gay Catholic, a Boston College alum and a housing developer working to build inclusive, affordable communities for people with and without disabilities. I’m also a lawyer, a traumatic brain injury survivor and someone who still prays through the pain. These identities don’t cancel each other out. Instead, they coexist, often uneasily, beneath the surface of the same rosary beads.
The church has been a contradiction in my life—a source of beauty and comfort, and also the origin of some of my deepest traumas. Growing up, I saw how church teachings were used to justify exclusion, cruelty and silence. My queerness wasn’t just misunderstood. It was weaponized against me, especially by those closest to me. I was taught to shrink, to hide, to beg God to change me.
And yet, I’m still here.
That persistence isn’t always about devotion. Sometimes it’s habit. Sometimes it’s hope. Sometimes it’s sheer defiance—a refusal to hand over the tradition I love to those who act as though God’s love has limits. I believe in a church that sees Christ in the margins. I believe Jesus didn’t come to protect power, but to upend it. Ultimately, I believe LGBTQ people belong not in spite of our faith, but because of it.
That’s why this conclave matters. I’m not expecting grand gestures and I know we won’t see a rainbow flag draped across St. Peter’s Square or an overnight doctrinal revolution.
Instead, I’m hoping for something quieter but far more enduring: a leader who believes that listening is holy, that accompaniment is not weakness and that the church’s future depends on whom it chooses to see. I’m hoping for a pope who understands that faithfulness is not measured by exclusion, but by compassion.
I’m hoping for a shepherd to guide a church in flux with courage, humility and imagination—and help lead us into a future where justice and mercy are not at odds, but inseparable.
The Gospel has always been about radical inclusion and not gatekeeping. Jesus broke bread with “outcasts,” not just those who had the “rules” memorized.
To those who view compassion toward LGBTQ people as a “dilution” of doctrine or a “threat” to tradition, I’d ask: what Gospel are you reading?
The one I know begins and ends with love.
It doesn’t fear inclusion—it commands it.
It says the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to seek out the one who was lost.
As we look to the future of the church, I pray we don’t retreat into fear or defensiveness (as we see in so much of today’s world), but rather step forward with the kind of bold mercy that Jesus modeled again and again. The kind that refuses to define worthiness by conformity, and instead finds holiness in presence, in relationship, in welcome.
This moment isn’t just about who’s chosen. It’s about who the church is becoming.
Will we double down on fear and control, or will we be brave enough to follow the Gospel where it leads—even if that looks unfamiliar or uncomfortable?
