A Door Ajar

Mourning Pope Francis and Dreaming of Tomorrow

Photo by Sunguk Kim on Unsplash

We woke up this morning to the news that Pope Francis had died—just hours after meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance. It was a shocking, somber start to Easter Monday, a day that’s meant to carry resurrection and joy. For us, it arrived with grief and questions.

A few weeks ago, we sat down to plan a series disrupting the typical Easter narrative—the far-right “Christ is King” discourse that floods social media every year, often reinforcing authoritarianism disguised as faith. We wanted to do something different: to spotlight queer Catholic joy. To speak not only of trauma and loss, but of resilience, sacred defiance, and the complicated grace of finding ourselves in a Church that so often tried to cast us out.

And yet, today felt too big, too heavy, to immediately launch that series.

Even in death, Francis remained a counter-witness to the forces seeking to claim Christianity as a weapon. Two days before the Pope’s passing, self-described “baby catholic” Vance met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin for “an exchange of opinions,” likely discussing Vance’s ordo amoris policy, using Medieval theology to justify his and Trump’s anti-immigration actions (while ignoring the queer medieval saints and mystics who’ve always been part of the church).

And then, the next day—on what would become the final day of his life—Pope Francis met with Vance directly. He used his last hours not for retreat, but for witness: celebrating Easter, standing on the balcony above St. Peter’s Square, and urging an end to war, violence, and exclusion. Even as his body was failing, he offered a quiet rebuke to the deadly vision Vance and Trump represent—a vision cloaked in theology, but devoid of mercy.

Almost immediately, the usual voices emerged: far-right Catholic influencers expressing thanks that Francis was dead, conspiracies blooming on social media, and calls for a new, more “faithful” pope—one who might reinstate a purer, harsher, more exclusionary Church.

Just hours after the pope’s death, Eric Sammons—self-appointed dad of Catholic Twitter and executive editor at the far-right Crisis Magazine—posted “Deo Gratias,” Latin for “thank God.” The post quickly sparked confusion and outrage on X, as users questioned why someone would publicly thank God for the Pope’s passing. Though Sammons later clarified that he had posted the same phrase after the deaths of his own parents, many were unconvinced—calling out the timing and tone as yet another example of the far-right weaponizing piety for provocation.

Some of the responses on X to Sammon’s post

Today, Sammons also posted an opinion piece in Crisis Magazine calling Pope Francis’s legacy a mess and declaring “now it’s up to us to clean up.” The piece’s title–”The Pope is Dead. Long Live the Papacy” serves as a stark reminder of Pope Francis’s controversial status as a door opener in the Church. It highlights how many radical traditionalists are pushing for far-right conservative leaders to steer the Church back toward a more rigid, exclusionary direction. Sammons wasn’t alone—many other far-right voices, while offering their RIPs, also used the occasion to criticize Francis's inclusive stance and even called for figures like Elon Musk or Donald Trump to assume the papacy. These users didn’t stop at rhetoric: they also weaponized AI-generated images to promote their message showing Musk and Trump in cardinal regalia, using the technology as a tool of authoritarianism while ignoring its environmental cost.

A screenshot of the article by Sammons that appears on the Cris Magazine website

The messages leveraging the Pope’s death for political gain are telling. Many people replying to Vance’s post on X about Francis’s death referred to how Francis was clear that “it’s hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of my help.” Francis defended this to Vance in person and to us with his dying breath. In his last appearance on the balcony in front of St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, he called for an end to wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan. He called for mercy and what many of his opposers consider the “sin of empathy” (which we’ve touched on before on this Substack here).

The Pope’s final words and actions stand in stark contrast to the political forces now trying to co-opt his legacy for their own purposes. Yet, even in the face of this power grab, there is another story unfolding. It’s moments like this that remind us why we wanted to create something different this Easter. In a season meant for renewal, we’re watching the old powers tighten their grip. But we also see something else—something quieter, but no less powerful: queer people who have survived, who have reclaimed faith, and who are building something holy at the margins.

It also brings us back to the questions we raised in the first piece of our Catholic Masculinity Series: what kind of man—and what kind of Church—does our faith call us to be? We critiqued the rise of authoritarian, divinely-sanctioned masculinity in figures like Trump, propped up by Catholic leaders like Bishop Barron. But we also began imagining something more—something Pope Francis, however imperfectly, pointed toward: a masculinity rooted not in domination, but in tenderness, humility, and care for the margins.

We also began imagining something more—something Pope Francis, however imperfectly, pointed toward: a masculinity rooted not in domination, but in tenderness, humility, and care for the margins.

At the same time, much of LGBTQ+ Catholic storytelling—rightfully—centers on the deep losses we face inside and outside the Church: the loss of family, friends, community, and sometimes even our mental and physical health, our lives. These are systems that claim to pray for us but, more often, seek to punish the queer out of us. That’s real trauma. Real pain. And it has cost us dearly.

There are so many questions now with the Pope’s passing. What does this mean for the Church? Who will be elected next? What does this mean for LGBTQ+ Catholics around the world, and an increasingly divided Church with a rising far-right traditionalist faction? What does this mean for us, and for you?

This Easter, we want to offer something different: a series that lifts up queer Catholic joy. Not as a denial of that grief, but as a testament to those who have found resilience, liberation, and even holiness within a Church that told us we didn’t belong. That project is still coming—it matters more than ever—but today, we pause. We mourn. And we wait, like the women at the tomb, for what comes next.

In the midst of that waiting, we were contacted by a reporter from BBC OS. Max, Emma, and Simon Kent Fung (who you may remember was featured on our latest episode of Whiplash with Maxwell Kuzma) all went on the radio to discuss the Pope’s legacy. Speaking directly with BBC presenter Mark Lowen as he stood in St. Peter's Square, we reflected on what Pope Francis meant for each of us and shared our hopes—and prayers—for what the future might hold. It was a chaotic, bittersweet day—a solemn goodbye to a pope who cracked open the doors of the Church to people like us, who never imagined we could exist as our authentic selves within her walls.

Photo from Max meeting Pope Francis in October 2024 alongside four other transgender men who met through the Outreach conference (George White is pictured next to Max)

In addition to the BBC conversation, Max also spoke with NBC Out about his experience meeting the Pope and the profound legacy Francis left for transgender people, a legacy that many of us never thought possible.

With all this being said, we felt it wasn’t a day to start a series on queer Catholic joy. It’s Easter Monday–the day after the most important day in the Catholic calendar, a day that Pope Francis survived. And we are about to enter the nine days of mourning following a pope’s death.

So as we begin Easter week, we’re holding space for everyone reading today—for your grief, your questions, your hope. This Easter Monday will stay with us for a long time. May Pope Francis’s papacy have planted seeds—of inclusion, of empathy, of radical love—that will take root in the Church he left behind. May we tend them well.