Hidden Mercy
AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $26.99
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- $26.99
Publisher Description
The 1980s and 1990s, the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States, was decades ago now, and many of the stories from this time remain hidden: A Catholic nun from a small Midwestern town packs up her life to move to New York City, where she throws herself into a community under assault from HIV and AIDS. A young priest sees himself in the many gay men dying from AIDS and grapples with how best to respond, eventually coming out as gay and putting his own career on the line. A gay Catholic with HIV loses his partner to AIDS and then flees the church, focusing his energy on his own health rather than fight an institution seemingly rejecting him.
Set against the backdrop of the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the late twentieth century and the Catholic Church's crackdown on gay and lesbian activists, journalist Michael O'Loughlin searches out the untold stories of those who didn't look away, who at great personal cost chose compassion--even as he seeks insight for LGBTQ people of faith struggling to find a home in religious communities today.
This is one journalist's--gay and Catholic himself--compelling picture of those quiet heroes who responded to human suffering when so much of society--and so much of the church--told them to look away. These pure acts of compassion and mercy offer us hope and inspiration as we continue to confront existential questions about what it means to be Americans, Christians, and human beings responding to those most in need.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist O'Loughlin debuts with an engrossing history of the Catholic Church's response to the AIDS crisis in the U.S. and the efforts of priests and nuns who were "willing to jeopardize their own ministry and reputation and stand with LGBT Catholics." O'Loughlin, who identifies as gay and Catholic, weaves his own struggles "to reconcile these two parts of my identity" into the narrative, which highlights tensions between "an institutional faith could be so homophobic" and the concern for the marginalized at the heart of Catholic teachings. He documents disagreements over whether Church officials and Catholic hospitals could promote condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS, and draws on extensive interviews with Catholic caregivers including Father Bill McNichols, a gay Jesuit priest and artist who clashed with Church leaders over his advocacy of LGBTQ worshippers. Amid the raw, emotional depictions of suffering and abandonment, moments of hope emerge, including the Dignity movement's hosting of a Mass for people with AIDS and their loved ones in 1983, Mother Teresa's opening of an AIDS hospice at St. Veronica's Church in Greenwich Village in 1985, and nearby St. Vincent's Hospital's emergence as a leading AIDS treatment center (though O'Loughlin notes the irony that the hospital has since been "chopped up and developed into expensive condos"). This poignant account shines a well-deserved spotlight on Catholics who chose compassion over fear.
