I thought I had it all figured out.
I graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2014, swiftly moved to New York and began working what most would consider “dream jobs” in media. And the latest of these “dream jobs” was the chance to cover the NFL on cable television and—for the first time—have an on-camera presence.
Then a layoff occurred, and within a matter of a few weeks I was left without a job and, in many ways, absolutely terrified.
But a call from one of my best friends changed my life forever.
“Adam,” my friend Eric proclaimed on that seemingly-mundane September 2024 evening. “You’ve got the skills, you’ve got a passion for Catholicism and media, you’ve got the presence and you live in New York. There’s a church on every corner. Why not start telling stories of these churches and create your own on-camera reel that you could send out to potential employers?”
It was like Eric took the role of my guardian angel that night as the light bulbs went off in my head.
I quickly started to map out exactly how to do this. On September 18, 2024, shortly after the 12:10 PM daily Mass at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on the Upper East Side, I began to truly walk by faith and not by sight.
It was the birth of NYC Catholic Church Tours, a series of short videos I publish on my Instagram account, and I haven’t looked back since.
Since that very first tour of St. Ignatius Loyola—where we highlighted President John F. Kennedy’s favorite pew in the church—I’ve visited nearly 200 churches nationwide, each with its own story to tell.
Highlights include churches such as St. Anthony of Padua in SoHo (Francis Ford Coppola’s favorite church in New York), to St. Paul’s in South Central Los Angeles where my parents were married. I’ve also explored and shared St. Clement’s in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood (where Danny Thomas got the inspiration for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN) and St. Augustine’s in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana where my ancestors worshiped.
This past year has truly been a journey of faith, even if the original intent of my videos was to get me a job. (It only took about four months for that goal to come to fruition, and now, I co-host and produce a show at the FOX station in Minneapolis each weekday afternoon.)
What’s been most special for me, especially as a gay Catholic, are the number of Catholic churches nationwide which not only truly live out the words of one of my favorite hymns, All Are Welcome—they practice exactly what they preach.
“All are welcome, all are welcome
All are welcome in this place.”
Let’s start in the beautiful city of San Francisco at the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in San Francisco situated in the heart of The Castro district. I learned there that at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, parishioners at M.H.R. paired up with fellow San Franciscans suffering with the virus to help them in whatever ways possible. Often times, it was simply just being there for them.
In the words of the Jesuits, these were members of a faith community truly living out their Ignatian spirituality of being a person for others.
Down the street from Most Holy Redeemer is St. Agnes. Situated in the middle of Haight-Asbury, a neighborhood synonymous with free love, is a parish community living out an all-inclusive spirit daily.
They have a monthly event where members of St. Agnes’ LGBTQ community come together to reflect on the month that was, pray with each other and build a community that extends across the Bay Area.
Going from NorCal to SoCal, you’ll find the historic St. Monica’s Church in Santa Monica, the home parish of some of Hollywood’s brightest stars throughout the decades and one of Los Angeles’s best LGBTQ ministry organizations.
St. Monica’s G.L.O. (Gay & Lesbian Outreach Ministry) was established back in 1992 and hosts monthly events where members from all across Los Angeles fight the infamous freeway traffic to be together.
Returning to the East Coast, if we’re talking about the most robust LGBTQ ministry groups in the nation, my tour would not be complete without visiting the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on Manhattan’s west side, the home of the LGBTQ ministry Out at St. Paul.
When I moved to New York in Summer 2014, I was still very much in the closet. One of my first apartments in the City was in Midtown and not too far from St. Paul’s, a parish with one of the most vibrant Masses I’ve ever attended, in no small part because of its Sunday evening young adult choir.
I would go to these Sunday evening Masses—awe-inspired at the Broadway-quality music—and I would listen intently to the post-Mass announcements where O.S.P. would meet at its usual spot.
I was far, far too nervous and intimidated to actually attend an O.S.P. meeting in those years, but I was curious, and those announcements have always stuck with me.
The O.S.P. community is one I’ve always held close to my heart, and I have several friends and connections I’ve made through the group. The spirit of the O.S.P. community is enlivening, and I know first-hand how important that group is to many of its members who truly feel at home when they walk through the doors of St. Paul’s.
And of course, one of the classic hymns that St. Paul’s choir performs is, All Are Welcome, which brings me back to the main point of this NYC Catholic Church Tours journey.
I have found hundreds of welcoming communities across the nation, and I know there surely must be someone reading this—maybe out in the world, maybe in the closet or somewhere in between—who wonders if there is a Catholic space for them.My hope is through my own personal experiences—and through the diary that NYC Catholic Church Tours has become—you’ll be able to find that home in your own backyard.
