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My book Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear was published two years ago today. I remember well the thrill of everything leading up to its publication date. The New York Times op-ed revealing a letter Pope Francis had written me about the book. Notes from friends and family who had pre-ordered and received copies a few days early. And the launch parties, where family, friends, colleagues and even a few personalities I wrote about gathered to wish me well. I wasn’t sure what would follow those frenetic few days. 

I never anticipated that I would be on the road for the next two years, giving talks at dozens of parishes, high schools, universities, hospital systems and nonprofits. Each event was unique, but the stories in Hidden Mercy always prompted thoughtful questions about the AIDS crisis, invited the sharing of stories new to me about that time in history and included an intergenerational exchange of ideas and wisdom.

At another event, this time in the Midwest, I met a student who asked me to sign a copy of his book. He told me he was Catholic, and, like me, also gay. But he hadn’t told too many people that. As he began to grapple with this sometimes messy identity, he learned about others who had wrestled with similar challenges, albeit decades earlier. 

A man stood up at a third event, in the Northeast, and choked up as he recalled a story from the later pages of my book. I had written about a candlelight vigil for people with AIDS, hosted by campus ministry while he was a freshman at Fordham. He had wanted so badly to attend the vigil. But he was so afraid, so deeply closeted, that he decided it would be better to skip out, lest anyone see him there and put two and two together.

He thanked me for writing about the vigil, because the shame of skipping the event had stuck with him for decades, and he finally was able to feel like he had been present.

There was no guarantee that what became Hidden Mercy would ever be published. A priest friend suggested it might be good for me to learn more about how other gay Catholics took on their church and cared for their dying friends. He thought the lessons from that time could console and encourage me as I struggled to understand my place in the church today.

I had recently been laid off and I was trying to keep busy. That’s when I started looking into a period of history I knew remarkably little about. I conducted a few interviews, spent time in archives and I wrote a proposal. My agent sent it back. He told me it wouldn’t work as it was.