Let’s Have A Conclave! How the Race for the Appointment of the Next Pope Turned Into a Queer Meme Fest

Words: Emma Cieslik

On Sunday, 27th April, people gathered in Malcolm X park in Washington, DC for the DC Papal Conclave. Holding a megaphone, the announcer explained to the lay audience that “If you are simply here because it is your God given right to vote as a cardinal, you need a name tag.” In their midst gathered people dressed in red, some as Waldo from Where’s Waldo, some as Mario from Nintendo, and one cat even wearing flowing red fabric. The vote for the new pope was underway and eventually - spoiler alert - the cat won.

It was a joyous moment where Washingtonians came together to poke fun at and participate in a two millennia-old ritual that has increasingly come into public attention with the release of Conclave (2024),a political thriller offering a view into the next pope’s election. Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes,brought centre stage the bureaucratic chaos of this event - how papal candidates left and right lose favour after sexual abuse, financial philandering, and political scandals are revealed inside the sacrosanct walls of the Sistine Chapel.

Particularly among LGBTQ+ viewers, the film resonated with its RuPaul Drag Race-style drama featuring men in dresses (cassocks), papal pageantry, and whispered secrets in St. Peter’s hallways, as well as its twist - the election of an intersex pope.
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Since the movie’s release, one online figure, Pope Crave, has leaned into the film and its “Pope Culture,” creating a digital fan zine that raised thousands of dollars for intersex rights. Since Pope Francis’s death last Monday, views of Conclave have risen 283% as people look to the film for a window into the hidden tradition of the Pope electoral process. And as people learn more about the ritual, they are leaning into the fanfare, betting on who the next pope will be, posting parody video auditions as candidates, and creating reality television style expose videos featuring the top candidates before the conclave begins on May 7th. 

It makes sense that as LGBTQ+ individuals and meme accounts are joking and joining in the papal selection process, media outlets are examining the rise of MAGA Catholics in the United States. These are the far-right Catholics that are appalled by those describing the fast-approaching conclave as the Pope Games where "135 of these divas will be having a sleepover in the Sister Chapel, talking about all things boys, who they like, who they don't." Yet the far-right creators and Catholics offended by this content miss the hidden messaging that would, most likely, feel like more of an affront.

“The Catholic Church has a rich history of gender expansive saints - from Joan of Arc to Marinos the Monk, yet modern far-right actors seek to deny and erase this history, not unlike how they are pushing to erase modern queer and trans histories.”

Content describing the conclave as a Vatican Fire Island, or calling for a ‘Wope’ (a Woman Pope) are fighting back against a church that continues to uphold homophobic stances by denying same-sex couples the sacrament of marriage and maintaining leaders who have used homophobic slurs to describe queer members of the Catholic community. 

Most recently, Dignitas Infinita - a document released by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in April 2024 - included an outright denial of the existence of trans, intersex, nonbinary and gender expansive individuals. Eight months before President Trump’s Executive Order affirming a strict gender binary within the US federal government, the Vatican argued that gender affirming care is a threat and reinforced that the same strict gender binary. 

For many LGBTQ+ individuals, for whom the Catholic Church wields major religio-cultural influence in the wider world, it was a dangerous precedent. The Church has for over two millennia wielded considerable power to commit terrible crimes - through colonialism, misuse and hoarding of wealth, environmental damage, and physical, emotional, and spiritual harm. Denouncing criticism of the Vatican is as valid as people claiming that criticising white, cis, straight men is a form of reverse racism and misogyny. Both wield considerable privilege and power and have used that power to exploit and harm others.

This fascination with “pope culture” is also one of the few ways that queer and trans people are accessing and reimagining Catholic symbolism. The Catholic Church has a rich history of gender expansive saints - from Joan of Arc to Marinos the Monk, yet modern far-right actors seek to deny and erase this history, not unlike how they are pushing to erase modern queer and trans histories. Pope culture is an accessible, and pointedly queer, reclamation of Catholic symbols and material culture - its velvet shoes, bejewelled chalices, and ephebic, often homoerotic depictions of nude or near nude male saints. 

Some recent examples of queer reclamation of Catholic imagery and narratives include curator Isabella Greenwood’s 2024 exhibition God Willing, as well as lesbian poet and artist Danielle Wilde’s performance of her amazing sonnet cycle St. Joan of BFD about growing up as a queer girl raised in the Bradford Catholic school system this past February. They mirror growing queer and trans theoretical explorations of Christian figures, including Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt’s 2021 text Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. So while some far-right and moderate Catholics express outrage over the co-option of popes, queer Catholicism and the conclave craze on social media, it’s the grassroots, modern interpretations and criticisms of the religion that deserve placing front and centre.