There have been a number of LGBTQ Catholics throughout history.

Artists

A number of influential Italian Catholic artists of the Renaissance and the Baroque who were notable for their religious paintings and sculpture were considered to have been homosexual or bisexual. These include Donatello,Paul Strathern, The Medici: Godfather of the Renaissance, London, 2003 [page(s) needed]. Sandro Botticelli,Jacques Mesnil, Botticelli, Paris, 1938 [page(s) needed]. Leonardo da VinciMichael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships epigraph, p. 148 & N120 p. 298. and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.Andrew Graham-Dixon, Caravaggio: A life sacred and profane, Penguin, 2011 [page(s) needed]. In addition, Michelangelo Buonarroti was noted for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, under which popes are elected to this day.Scigliano, Eric: Michelangelo's Mountain: The Quest for Perfection in the Marble Quarries of Carrara, Simon and Schuster, 2005. Retrieved 27 January 2007 [page(s) needed]. Andy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art, and whose homosexuality strongly influenced his work.See biographers such as Victor Bockris, and art historian He was a Ruthenian Catholic and regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York to practice his faith. He described himself as a religious person and regularly attended mass. Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–89) was an American photographer. From 1977 until 1980, Mapplethorpe was the lover of gay writer and Drummer magazine editor Jack Fritscher.Jack Fritscher, Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer, San Francisco, Palm Drive Publishing, 2008, , p. 473, Jackfritscher.com , retrieved 29 September 2014. He was brought up in a Roman Catholic household and although he later "lapsed" from practicing the religion, he created art suffused with Catholicism – particularly in the areas of Catholic guilt and eroticism.Eleanor Heartney, Postmodern Heretics: The Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art, 2004, p. 82.Kara Kelley Hallmark, Twentieth Century United States Photographers: A Student's Guide, 2008 [page(s) needed].

Politicians and royalty

Politicians

Pim Fortuyn (1948-2002), Dutch politician and civil servant was gay, stating in a 2002 interview that he was Catholic. " Question: U beschouwt zichzelf nog wel als katholiek? Answer: Ja, daar ontkom je niet aan. [..] Question: Toch noemt u zich ondanks uw homoseksualiteit nog steeds katholiek. Answer: Ik bén katholiek! Ik ben nota bene gedoopt! Ik noem me niet zo, ik ben het!" (Question: Do you still consider yourself a Catholic? Answer: Yes, you can't escape from that. [..] Question: But in spite of your homosexuality you still call yourself a Catholic. Answer: I am a Catholic. I have, after all, been baptised! I don't call myself one, I am one!) Ruth Hunt (b. 1980) is Chief Executive of leading UK-based lesbian, gay and bisexual equality organisation Stonewall, the largest gay equality body in Europe. She was formerly President of the Oxford University Student Union. Hunt is a practicing Roman Catholic and has spoken out in favour of bridging the gap between faith leaders and LGBT communities. Stefan Kaufmann (born 1969) is a German politician and member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He is gay, and a devout practising Catholic. Daniel Kawczynski (born 1972), Polish-born British Member of Parliament. A practising Catholic, he came out in 2013 and is in a same-sex civil partnership. Jens Spahn (born 1980), German politician, former Federal Minister of Health. Spahn is a self-described Roman Catholic although he has stated publicly that he has problems with the Catholic Church and its sexual morality. He lives with his husband Daniel Funke, a German journalist and lobbyist, in Berlin's Schöneberg district. In December 2017, the two married in a civil ceremony at Borbeck Palace in Essen, officiated by the city's mayor Thomas Kufen.Kati Degenhardt (23 December 2017), Merkels bester Mann: Jens Spahn hat heimlich geheiratet BILD. Klaus Wowereit (born 1953), German politician, former mayor of Berlin. He came out as gay, by declaring in the by now famous statement: "Ich bin schwul und das ist auch gut so!" ("I am gay and that's a good thing, too!"). Sean Patrick Maloney (born 1966), American politician, U.S. representative from from 2013 to 2023 and former DCCC chair. Robert Garcia (born 1977), Peruvian-born American politician, member of the Democratic Party, U.S. representative from California's 42nd congressional district since 2023 and 28th Mayor of Long Beach from 2014 to 2022. Geraldine Roman (born 1967), Filipina politician and journalist, Representative of Bataan's 1st district since 2016. She is the first transgender person elected to the Congress of the Philippines. Sepp Müller (born 1989), German politician, member of the Bundestag (CDU) Wolfgang Stefinger (born 1985), German politician, member of the Bundestag (CSU)

Royalty

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626 – 1689) reigned from 1632 before her abdication in 1654. Modern biographers generally consider her to have been a lesbian, and her affairs with women were noted during her lifetime.Crompton, Louis (2009). Homosexuality and Civilization. Harvard University Press. pp. 357–60. She was a prominent convert to Catholicism in 1654 and is one of only 6 women to be buried in the crypt of St. Peters Basilica in Rome. Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663 – 1736), the military commander of the Catholic Imperial forces in the Holy Roman Empire, was predominantly homosexual.Nicholas Henderson, Eugen of Savoy, London, 1964 King Ludwig II (1845 – 1886) was monarch of the Catholic Kingdom of Bavaria from 1864 until his death; it is known from his diary and private letters that he had strong homosexual desires which he tried to suppress.McIntosh, Christopher. The Swan King: Ludwig II of Bavaria. (1982) He remained a devout Catholic throughout his life and attended services regularly; building chapels for prayer within his castles, and commissioning religious art.Clara Tschudi, Ludwig II King of Bavaria King Umberto II of Italy was an intense Catholic, described by his biographer Domenico Bartoli as "almost to the point of fanaticism", but he was unable to resist what he called his "satanic" homosexual urges.Dall'Oroto, Giovanni "Umberto II" from Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, London: Psychology Press, 2002 p. 453.

Clergy, religious, and theologians

Antonio Barberini (1607 – 1671) was an Italian Catholic cardinal, Archbishop of Reims, military leader, patron of the arts and a prominent member of the House of Barberini. He was bisexual. Carlo Carafa (1517 – 1561) was a Roman Catholic cardinal, and all-powerful favourite and Cardinal Nephew of Pope Paul IV Carafa, whose policies he directed and whom he served as papal legate in Paris, Venice and Brussels. He was convicted of a number of crimes, including homosexual sodomy, and executed.Miles Pattenden, Pius IV and the Fall of The Carafa: Nepotism and Papal Authority in Counter Reformation Rome Benedetta Carlini (1591 – 1660) was the abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God in Pescia, who shared her cell with Sister Bartolomea. When the two nuns had sex, Sister Benedetta said she experienced mystical visions and angelic possession. The church authorities investigated the mystical experiences and, upon discovering her lesbian sexuality, stripped Carlini of her position as abbess and held her under guard for the remainder of her life.Judith Brown: Immodest Acts: The Life of A Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy: New York: Oxford University Press: 1986 Frederick William Faber - (1814 - 1863) described by Kirstie Blair as suffering a 'failure of reserve'.Blair, Kirstie. “Breaking Loose: Frederick Faber and the Failure of Reserve.” Victorian Poetry, vol. 44, no. 1, 2006, pp. 25–41. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40002796. Accessed 26 June 2021. Jean O'Leary (1948 – 2005) was an American lesbian and gay rights activist. She was the founder of Lesbian Feminist Liberation, one of the first lesbian activist groups in the women's movement, and an early member and co-director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She co-founded National Coming Out Day. Before becoming a lesbian and gay rights activist she was a Roman Catholic religious sister. She would later write about her experience in the 1985 anthology, Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence.Curb, Rosemary; Manahan, Nancy (1985) Lesbian nuns : breaking silence. Tallahassee, FL. Naiad Press. Francis Joseph Spellman (1889 – 1967) was an American bishop and cardinal. From 1939 until his death in 1967, he served as the sixth Archbishop of New York. FBI files suggested that Spellman was an active, if covert, homosexual.Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, The Man and the Secrets (NY: W. W. Norton, 1991), notes page 347. Robert Carter was one of the first gay priests to publicly come out as gay. He co-founded the LGBT advocacy group the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Mychal Judge, O.F.M. (aka Michael Fallon Judge, May 11, 1933 – September 11, 2001), was a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest who served as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. It was while serving in that capacity that he was killed, becoming the first certified fatality of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Jose Mantero (born 1963) was the first out gay priest in Spain. John J. McNeill (September 2, 1925 – September 22, 2015) was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1959 and subsequently worked as a psychotherapist and an academic theologian, with a particular reputation within the field of queer theology. Bernard Lynch became the first Catholic priest in the world to undertake a civil partnership in 2006 in the Republic of Ireland (he had previously had his relationship blessed in a ceremony in 1998 by an American Cistercian monk). He was subsequently expelled from his religious order in 2011, and went on to legally wed his husband in 2016. James Alison, Roman-Catholic priest in United Kingdom and SpainEurekastreet: Conversation with a gay priest William Hart McNichols, Roman-Catholic priest in New York CityAmericaMagazine: Meet the gay priest who served AIDS patients with Mass, prayers and art, 2019 David Berger is a German theologian and former professor of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.Spiegel:Theologe David Berger: Großteil katholischer Kleriker homosexuell His licence to teach religion was revoked by the Catholic Church.Kölner Stadt-Anzeigers. November 3, 2015 Until 2015 he was the editor of the gay periodical MÄNNER (Berlin), and has written about his experiences as a gay theologian.Die Welt: "Der heilige Schein" Daniel A. Helminiak (b. 1942) is an American Catholic priest, theologian and author. He is currently a professor in the Department of Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology at the University of West Georgia, near Atlanta. From 1975 to 1978, he served as teaching assistant to Bernard Lonergan, S.J. (1904–1984), the philosopher, theologian, economist, and methodologist whom Newsweek styled the Thomas Aquinas of the 20th century. Krzysztof Charamsa (born 5 August 1972) a Polish Catholic theologian and author. In 2015, after declaring he was homosexual and in a relationship, he was suspended from his position as a Catholic priest and removed from several previous posts in the Roman Curia.

Writers and academics