I stood outside the chapel door in anxious anticipation. It was National Coming Out Day, Oct. 11, and my team and I had been working on a student prayer service to commemorate the occasion for months. The programs were printed, with an image of the Sacred Heart along with a rainbow, the Paschal candle and small tapers were brought out to share the light during the service and the ministers were prepped and ready. All we needed next was people to show up.
I grew more anxious as the start time drew closer and people trickled in the chapel and took their seats. Like many Catholic colleges, the University of Notre Dame, where I completed my undergraduate studies and am currently completing my master of divinity degree, has a complicated history with its LGBTQ students. I wasn’t sure how this prayer service, “Called by Name,” would go over. I felt supported on campus, and took advantage of the programming offered to LGBTQ students. The university officially sanctioned an LGBTQ student group in 2013, a few years before I enrolled as a freshman, and LGBTQ alumni formed their own association in 2021.
But LGBTQ students didn’t always feel comfortable being public about our identities. A few years ago, a priest wore a rainbow stole during a prayer service, sparking fierce backlash from some students on campus. Going ahead with our prayer service, and knowing that a drag show was planned to take place on campus a few weeks later, meant that we were worried about protests and sit-ins.
I felt a sense of inner peace because of a visit to Rome when I had a brief but meaningful encounter with Pope Francis that continues to sustain me.
Despite all that, I felt a sense of inner peace about the prayer service, partly because of a visit to Rome more than a decade ago, when as a freshman in high school, I had a brief but meaningful encounter with Pope Francis that continues to console me today.
Following an illness, back in 2014, I was given the opportunity by the Make-A-Wish Foundation to do something fun. Many kids might choose to go on shopping sprees or Disney vacations. But not me. I wanted to go to Rome and see the newly elected pope.
As my family and I maneuvered through the crowds to get to our seats at the pope’s weekly audience, the excitement was palpable. We took our places on the main stage in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, and within moments, the crowd before us swarmed as Pope Francis weaved through in his popemobile and took his place a few rows in front of me and my family. He welcomed us all with a warm “buongiorno,” and offered a few words of reflection before giving us his apostolic blessing.
I was only in the presence of Pope Francis for a few minutes, but the peace and love I felt in that moment spoke to something deep within me.
I was only in the presence of Pope Francis for a few minutes, but the peace and love I felt in that moment spoke to something deep within me. Maybe it offered a sense of welcome and inclusion at a time when I was extremely closeted, when I worried if I would be kicked out of this church that has been my home. Maybe it was his extreme humility, with his simple white cassock and his decision to live in a humble apartment, that inspired me to want to do something similar. I still can’t put my finger on why those feelings were so strong that day, but they were, and they proceeded to inspire me in critical moments of my formation as a Christian disciple. As the years went on, I continued to draw inspiration from the pope, even reading the news from afar.
When he washed the feet of prisoners on Holy Thursday, Francis taught me that to love like Christ means more than loving those in my immediate circles. It means going to the peripheries and finding Christ intimately there. His worship with leaders from other Christian churches taught me that the Holy Spirit may be less constrained than we sometimes presuppose. And his now famous response, “Who am I to judge?,” together with his proclamation that the church is for “todos, todos, todos,” continually reminds me that I can be Catholic, a lay ecclesial minister and a gay man, all as one, todo.
Pope Francis reminds me that I can be Catholic, a lay ecclesial minister and a gay man, all as one, todo.
Back at Notre Dame, I took a deep breath as the prayer service was beginning. As another LGBTQ student and I formed our processional line, and I gave the cue to the pianist to start the opening song, I wanted to turn around and bolt out the door. “What if this gets ‘out there’ and makes national news too,” I worried. “What if being gay is all people focus on, and I can’t devote myself to ministry?”
Before those thoughts took over, I reminded myself of the outreach Pope Francis had made to the LGBTQ community, how he had encouraged other ministers to walk alongside us.
Filled with confidence, I sang my heart out and walked down the aisle in a chapel full of LGBTQ students, edified by the memory of a kindly pope offering a word of welcome: buongiorno.
