Michael J. OLoughlin - Hidden Mercy : AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear

Praise for Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear

A superbly researched, beautifully written, and vividly presented portrait of an overlooked time in modern history. An important book about a key part of Catholic and American history that had to be written.

James Martin, SJ, New York Times bestselling author of Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter Into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity

With the precision and drive of an expert investigative journalist, the heart of a poet and the soul of a faithful, gay Catholic conflicted by his own spiritual home, his quest for answers about what the Church did, and did not do, in the mysterious and terrifying beginnings of AIDS in America unearths tragic yet beautiful stories of love and death that may have been lost without this magnificent and passionate documentary.

Jeannie Gaffigan, author of When Life Gives You Pears: The Healing Power of Family, Faith, and Funny People

Michael OLoughlin sets his sights on an aspect of recent American history and culture too little examined. Hidden Mercy will cause discussion, argument, and maybe recommitment to an ideal of faith in action that can still play out in our day. And a good thing too.

Gregory Maguire, New York Times bestselling author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Michael J. OLoughlin offers a moving personal history as well as a well written and reported account of the brave priests and nunsqueer and straight alikethat jeopardized their own career and standings with the church by merely treating LGBTQ Catholics with dignity during the height of the AIDS crisis.

Michael Arceneaux, New York Times bestselling author of I Cant Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons Ive Put My Faith in Beyonc and I Dont Want to Die Poor

OLoughlin introduces us to so many unsung heroes of the AIDS crisis, and their lives vividly showcase the compassion and the cruelty that coexist in one community. A harrowing and deeply personal story.

Molly Worthen, associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, New York Times contributing opinion writer, and author of Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism

Hidden Mercy isnt simply about institutional hypocrisy during the height of the AIDS years but also about the ongoing drive to build a more authentic, vibrant, and welcoming church from within, closer to the values of the Gospel. On top of all that its compulsively readable, vigorous, and alive, full of searching, complicated, tough-minded, loving people.

Paul Lisicky, author of Later and The Narrow Door

Lovemuch like the power of communityreally does stand at the center of Hidden Mercy. OLoughlin never loses sight of that, and queer history is better because of it.

Xorje Olivares, host of the podcast Queer I Am, Lord

With care and curiosity, OLoughlin weaves a compelling narrative that exists at the intersection of faith and sexuality. What follows is a story that is at times funny, surprising, and ultimately restores some of my own faith that people can and will show up for each other.

Tobin Low, editor at This American Life and co-creator of the podcast Nancy

Much has been written about how the Catholic Church failed us in the worst years of the AIDS pandemic. Michael OLoughlins deep reporting finds a much richer narrative.

David France, author of How to Survive a Plague

Hidden Mercy unburies the lost testimonies of American Catholic priests and nuns who dared cross into the no mans land between queerness and religion at the height of the AIDS crisis. Punks of the collar, renegades of the cloth, they risked excommunication in the earliest days of the gay cancer and found religious justification to provide a kind of forbidden care.

Robert W. Fieseler, author of Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation

Michael OLoughlin beautifully captures the complexity and richness of Catholic responses to AIDS in the USA of the 1980s and 1990s. Both the compassion and the cruelty, the fear and the love which abounded. This is the crucible in which the spiritual strength of many modern LGBT Catholics has been forged, a vitally important part of our history.

James Alison, author of Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay

OLoughlins book is a work of resurrection. He unearths and brings to life lives long hidden, overlooked, and forgotten but so constitutive of the early struggle for hope, survival, dignity, and solidarity.

James Keenan, SJ, Canisius Professor of theology at Boston College and author of Catholic Ethicists on HIV/AIDS Prevention

Michael J. OLoughlin

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

HIDDEN MERCY

AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear

Copyright 2021 Michael J. OLoughlin. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Cover image: Christopher YoungUSA TODAY NETWORK

Cover design: Faceout Studios

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-6770-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-6771-9

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

To Matt, with love and gratitude.

Evil crushes the lives of countless humans; there are few to intervene.

Daniel Berrigan, SJ, To Dwell in Peace

The stories in this book originate from a range of sources, including organizational and personal archives, contemporaneous news reports, and more than one hundred interviews with people who lived and worked during the height of the HIV and AIDS crisis in the United States, roughly 1982 through 1996. The sources of any quotes taken from archival materials are provided in the endnotes. In most cases, they are drawn from my interviews and dialogue has been recreated based on the subjects recollection. Whenever possible, details have been checked against historical records. In a few instances, the sole source is one persons memory.

New York

A Catholic nun from a small city in southern Illinois plopped herself down on a stool inside a dark New York City gay bar. It was 1987. Ronald Reagan was president. Madonna and Whitney Houston dominated the charts. And the Band Played On was a bestseller. But at that particular moment, Sister Carol Baltosiewich nursed her drink and glanced nervously around the bar. Small groups of men laughed. Some flirted; a few embraced. Sister Carol had so many questions. What were their stories? Where had they come from? How were they coping? For her, this was an entirely new world.

Born in 1943, Sister Carol was raised in a Polish-Catholic household outside Detroit. She later joined her religious order, the Hospital Sisters of Saint Francis, and graduated from nursing school, in 1971, before working in a handful of Midwestern hospitals. She was well educated and good at being a nurse. But none of that prepared her to be here, sipping a drink in a gay bar in New York City. She had no time to dwell on that, as she snapped back to reality when something caught her eye.