PLAGUE: Untold Stories of AIDS and the Catholic Church

DISCLAIMER: “Plague” is a podcast by America Magazine, and all content is used with the author’s permission.

“In ‘Plague’, journalist Michael O’Loughlin investigates the untold stories of AIDS and the Catholic Church.

Mike is America’s national correspondent and he’s covered Catholicism for more than a decade. Mike is also gay and Catholic—and he’s curious how others manage this sometimes complex identity.

Through dozens of interviews and archival research, he’s found that no time in modern history was more volatile for gay Catholics than the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Mike met with people who were right there, in the middle of the early days of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the United States. People who fought, worked and grieved their ways through this trying time.

You can listen to “Plague” on Apple Podcasts here, on Google Play here, on Spotify here OR on America’s website here.

You can . . . subscribe to the podcast to get each new episode as it is released.

 

PLAGUE PODCAST

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Michael O’Loughlin, host of “Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS and the Catholic Church,” discusses the series with Father James Martin, SJ, on Dec. 5, 2019, at the America Media office in New York.
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A scroll with the names of people who died from AIDS in Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, which ministered to people with HIV and AIDS in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood. Today the church continues to serve L.G.B.T. Catholics. Most Holy Redeemer is profiled in episode 4 of Plague: A GAY CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE CASTRO (Credit: Michael O’Loughlin)
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An icon by the artist Father William Hart McNichols sits in Saint Francis Xavier Church in New York. Father McNichols was an early AIDS ministry pioneer, who came out as gay in order to minister effectively to L.G.B.T. people in the 1980s and 90s. McNichols is profiled in episode 3 of Plague: THE COST OF AIDS MINISTRY TO A GAY PRIEST (Credit: Michael O’Loughlin)