Dear Listeners,
Emma and I are back with a new episode! We start by catching up, where Emma shares about the Queer and Catholic Oral History Project, and talking through Pope Leo’s recent comments on sexual morality, and what it feels like to keep encountering these familiar frameworks that continue to shape how LGBTQ people are spoken about in the church. It’s not just about reacting to what was said, but trying to understand what it means—and what it does.
From there, the conversation also develops the historical side of things. Emma shares more about the archival work she’s been doing around LGBTQ histories, and the importance of taking that history seriously as something that directly informs how we understand ourselves right now. It’s powerful to realize that our lives don’t begin with the latest headline or controversy, that there’s a much longer story here that often goes unacknowledged.
In that spirit, Emma brings in three historical figures whose lives help make that history more visible. Not as perfect examples but as real people whose existence complicates the idea that LGBTQ identity is somehow new, modern, or incompatible with faith. Their stories don’t just give us something to look back on—they give us a different way to read the present.
What happens when we stop seeing ourselves only through the lens of what’s being said about us, and start grounding ourselves in a history that’s much bigger than that? Check out the episode to find out our thoughts.
🎧 Listen to the podcast here on Substack (where you can toggle between video with subtitles and just the audio file, and read a transcript by clicking the button on the top of the episode page on the web), Spotify (which has video and in-app transcripts), Apple Podcasts (which has in-app transcripts), and YouTube.
And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts—feel free to reply to this email or leave a comment.
—Max
