ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emerging theological legacies of Catholic languaging around gay and lesbian issues and discusses the political legacies of Catholic languaging around gay and lesbian issues. It aims to explain the passionate politics of queer activisms that challenged the Church’s response to the AIDS epidemic and its contemporary teachings on homosexuality and gender identity. Yet the cost of such coming around is borne by queers—both those lost to the epidemic and those who lost the possibilities of meeting those queers who would be our elders. The Church has, of course, come around in some ways since the height of the AIDS epidemic to pastorally embrace gays and lesbians. Many within the religious life of the Catholic Church, despite its complexity, have pastorally embraced their gay and lesbian parishioners. Pope Francis wants to raise questions about if he is to judge gays and lesbians, but such a move in light of the previous interview reads as avoidance.
