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While the world anticipates the changes that a new pope will bring to the Catholic church, fewer Latinos in the U.S. actually identify with Catholicism today. This week on Hyphenación, host Xorje Olivares discusses the question, “Is God still relevant to us?” with guests Hoja Lopez and Luis Galilei.
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Xorje Olivares, Host: Y’all, the Walter Mercado candles WORKED. We have a new pope!! Which still feels a little weird to say. Que en paz descanse Papa Francisco. But on May 8th, the papal conclave elected Cardinal Robert Prevost as the Catholic Church’s new leader. And not only is the new Pope Leo the Fourteenth our first-ever American pontiff, he’s also worked as missionary and bishop from Peru for many years. So he’s Latino-adjacent, right?
Now it’s still too soon to say what his papacy will bring, but early responses have seemed positive. And I’m just talking about my own personal text threads. Because did y’all doubt for a second that my family and I are HELLA Catholic? The Mexican culture I grew up with is practically synonymous with Catholicism! But I know that’s not the case for everyone. Because as time passes and society pushes forward, younger generations are identifying weaknesses within organized religion. Like the Catholic church still officially believes that queer folks like me, and specifically transgender people, must routinely apologize for our supposed “sinful” existence – which, no thank you. It also refuses to let women become clergy or assume positions of power. And don’t get me started on the ongoing abuse scandal. Some will say that Christian institutions are hurting God’s public image, so much so that it’s pushing people away. Others might say that organized religion just isn’t relevant anymore. So, put simply – who or what do we believe in these days?
I’m Xorje Olivares, and I’m eager to ask this question. Is God still relevant to us? This is Hyphenation, where conversation and cultura meet.
Xorje Olivares: So joining me today are two people with very different relationships to religion than myself, but we all grew up Catholic. And since we grew up catholic, I’m dying to figure out the last time they went to church. So joining us first is Hoja Lopez, a comedian and writer who pretty much spent her entire academic career in Venezuela going to Catholic school, which all the power to you. And now identifies as, like a spiritually fluid person. So, Hoja, thank you for joining us. And secondly, when was the last time you found yourself in church?
Hoja Lopez: You have truly stumped me with this. I was trying to rock my brain. I think the last time I went, I went to a very fancy white lady and man wedding, um, in New Orleans. And there was, uh, it was like one of those grand ones that has like a giant organ in the back and like sort of expansive ceilings. And I’ll tell you what, the Catholics, we really do churches, right?
Hoja Lopez: This was probably like 2017. I stood outside of a church two years ago waiting for my mom to come out. And my mom was sort of like beckoning me in. And I said, I’m good, I’ll stay out here. I’ll wait for you. But that, yeah, there’s something about a church, the grander it is. I don’t know if they’re trying to maybe bamboozle you a little bit to feel the sort of grandiosity of God, the bigger the church is, but um there is something about like a beautiful stained glass that makes you feel like there’s something bigger going on.
Xorje Olivares: But there’s a chorus of angels just singing bringing you inside its doors, Sister Act style.
Hoja Lopez: 100%
Xorje Olivares: I’m not sure if he’s a Sister Act fan but excited to welcome Luis Galilei, who is an actor, filmmaker, and a performer who grew up Catholic, but pretty early on rejected a lot of its teachings, is now very much a follower of Andean spirituality. And so I’m curious for you, Luis, when was the last time you were inside of a church?
Luis Galilei: Well, I had to look it up because I wanted to put some cultural context here. The last time I was in a church, Teach me How to Dougie drop.
Xorje Olivares: Whoa. Whoa, OK.
Luis Galilei: 2010 baby when I was 15, dawg. That’s the last time I stepped in there
Xorje Olivares: I’ll just chime in and say that for me, it was the Saturday before Easter this year, before Pope Francis left us, it must have, I must have known, my body was drawing me to church in order to give my tocayo one last hurrah. Well, thank you so much for joining me today to have this conversation about religion. So there is this notion that family is the Genesis of our understanding. Oh my God, Genesis, look at what I did there, uh of our understanding of religion. So Hoja, could you talk about w hat your family’s association with religion was, especially maybe Catholicism.
Hoja Lopez: Sure, so I grew up with a very religious grandma and great grandma. There were people who were like waking up at 5 a.m. Every day rosary, like they would do the little like, like the whip yourself on your thigh stuff, like really hardcore Opus Dei crazy shit. And so my mom was really like kind of the first rebel of the family. I feel like there’s always a rebel. So I got to be a second generation rebel. This is just reminding me. I was, uh, I recently had this thing, recently, a couple of years ago– I called my mom and I was like, “Mom, I remember you in a copper pyramid in the middle of the living room,” and my mom’s like, “Ay si mija, I was just praying. I was meditating in the middle of the copper pyramid.” This woman is so not Catholic anymore that she had my stepdad build her a copper that she would sit in. And she would meditate because my mom’s very like woo-woo now. So now it’s a real kind of like combination for her of coming back to Catholicism as an older woman, but still holding like this very broad set of beliefs. But yeah, for her it’s real mix.
Xorje Olivares: umm hmm, I see that. Luis, who would you say is the most religious person in your family when you think about religion, like at a Catholic level, Christian level, this like church going figure?
Luis Galilei: Yeah, I, I never had someone in my family that was like a very much a church going figure. For me, like the Catholicism was just like,it was a part of our upbringing, it was a part of our life. Everything, everything had to do with it, except for going to church.
Xorje Olivares: Oh interesting
Luis Galilei: Once I started to become of age I guess like my mom started to get like really enthused with getting me in Sunday school classes and working on my first communion like all all my family has done all the like communion and confirmation thing and that’s where it stopped and then like sometimes they go to church very like now that they’re older they go because I think they’re starting to feel their mortality So they’re like, let’s let me pray to something bigger and I’m like, oh, it’s very interesting how you guys go now Uh, God’s been watching the whole time, girl.
[Laughter]
Hoja Lopez: Did y’all do catechism school? Like you went through the full, I call it like a prep course, LSAT, but except for more like, what, eight years old. I imagine it’s like very similar to like, um, like the studying that you have to do for your bat mitzvah. Like you have learn so many things.
Xorje Olivares: Oh, the fact that in catechism that I acted out the prodigal son parable at least five times in my childhood. Like I was the son that came back and was like, my son, you’ve been gone for so long.
Xorje Olivares: Um, but yeah, we would do it, we would have class right before mass. So it was like a three hour extravaganza
Hoja Lopez: So long!
Luis Galilei: I think I just made a realization on why I don’t fuck with Catholicism just now because you were talking about acting out that thing and like you were the son and like, I didn’t grow up with my dad. Like my dad was out of my life and he chose to be out of life. And like this whole religion is about somebody’s son. And I’m like, fuck that guy. Where is he at? Oh, dang. I don’t know if that’s like real, but like maybe I was like, whoa, I feel a little like, I felt like a little vulnerable right there when you said that. And I was, like, wait, I wonder if as a little kid, like I was just like this whole son father thing, like really just, I didn’t believe in it because it wasn’t granted for me. So I was. Why? I don’t understand this. And, I was I questioned it from the get
Hoja Lopez: I love that you have this sort of like the bug in the back of your head because I didn’t have that I, I wasn’t like a kid that like knew how to beat to the rhythm of my own drum I was such a little follower as a kid. The only reason that I like um That I went to catechism school really was I really thought it was all real like and I wasn’t really into the judgment. I liked the magic of it. I like the stories of it like I liked this sort In some way, I didn’t really have like a super present dad in my life either. But there were a lot of other stories that I really sort of like identified with. And I loved all the virgins crying blood, the drama, the DRAMA.
Xorje Olivares: It is a very dramatic religion. And I love that Luis, you know, when I, when they introduced you, we talked about Andean spiritual beliefs, that that’s more of where you’re headed in. Can you explain what that that means for folks who are just learning about this for the first time?
Luis Galilei: Essentially it’s praying to the earth. Pachamama is the earth then we have Inti, which is the sun god, the mammakia, which is the moon. And there’s many different Quechua names for the different aspects of Earth that you prayed to I guess how I got into it was that I learned that my family has Incan roots. My great grandmother, who I met, didn’t know how to speak Spanish. She just spoke Quechua, which was the Indigenous language of the people in the Andes before Catholicism got there and then made everyone speak Spanish. The Spaniards with Catholicism came in, told them their religion was bad, that they’re devils and that you should speak this language, which is Spanish, not your heathen language. So that whole thing sort of was like, okay, we were something closer to earth before. And I myself in my own therapeutic spiritual journey. Have felt very far away from my own self. So I started to pray in different ways and I started to find gratitude in many different places. Like the Andean sort of spirituality has made me so much– has help me achieve a peace throughout the day that I haven’t been able to in other forms. But I have seen people who follow Catholicism do, but I can see Pachamama everywhere. She talks to me in the way the earth talks to all humans. So I’ve learned and I know it’s super woo woo and I do not look like the type of person that does this, but like I’ll choose to walk home. So that I can absorb her. And if I’m not feeling well, like I will literally hug a tree. Like I will, literally touch a tree and like I’ve just seen that throughout all the cultures in this world, there’s been a common denominator, and it’s the Earth.
Xorje Olivares: We’re going to take a quick break and when we come back, more Hyphenación.
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Xorje Olivares: So like any good Catholic boy growing up in the Texas, Mexico border, uh, my family and I raised money so that way I could go to world youth day back in 2005. It is a time where you sent essentially millions of children to a specific place in the world for a pilgrimage. And it ends with a papal mass. So my family and I are fucking selling like chicken fajita plates in order to raise enough money to send me to Germany so I can go see Pope Benedict in Cologne Germany now 20 years ago. And I distinctly remember that part of this pilgrimage is we had to go to confession and because at the time I already knew I was gay had not really told many folks in my life I thought I needed to confess it that I needed to confess to this stranger priest that I was living with this truth. And when I go up to this priest, again, somebody whose name, face, I could not even describe to you, I remember sitting and saying, as I’m listing out my sins, that I was gay. And he looked at me and he said, you don’t need to say that here. And not that it was a part of him saying like, don’t mention this in church, it was… This is not to be included in the list of things that you have to ask for forgiveness for. And that stuck with me all these years later in so much so that I never felt one, that I had to confess that I was gay ever again, or two, that I ever needed to hide the fact that Diosito made a choice for me to be gay and I could live as openly and proudly as I wanted to as a Catholic person who also was of a queer experience. So I want to start with you Hoja about recognizing if your queerness could coexist with your beliefs or if there was a bit of tension that you had to work through
Hoja Lopez: Yeah, I don’t think there was a ton of tension for me personally. I kind of like, as I mentioned, my mom was meditating in brass pyramids when I was growing up. So she sort of was a very pragmatic woman. I didn’t think that she was ever gonna have a real problem with me being a lesbian or me being gay. And so I guess the thing for me was really like my grandparents. I feel like I came out to, uh, I sort of actually tested the waters first with my grandma and I was like, wouldn’t it be crazy if, how crazy would it be if, um, what would be crazy if I was a lesbian or like was gay or something? But um, but I definitely was testing the waters. And I remember her kind of saying like… Her first word of course sounded like, ew, you know? And it was such a throwaway little line, but it really kind of sets you back a little bit whenever you test the waters and it doesn’t go that well, you now? And my mom for so many years was like, don’t tell her, just, you, it’s gonna kill her. I don’t know why they always think that coming out is gonna kill the old people.
Xorje Olivares: First response most people have is like, No, please, we want her to live a healthy life.
Hoja Lopez: Why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’ she? She gets to know her grand person a lot better by just like knowing who they are. And I finally did come out to my grandma and I think it was a very sort of like soft okayness. I think that they really care for me and they don’t want to alienate me. She really had to make a choice. She kind of had to choose to have me for these small moments or to really kind of not know me And I’m really glad she chose the way that she chose
Xorje Olivares: Oh, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, it’s so beautiful. Luis, is there something as you’re now embarking on this this form of spirituality this Andean spirituality that you’ve talked about praying to the earth And praying to to the things around you Is it easy to see your queerness in that?
Luis Galilei: I think because of the Catholic, sort of marriage between this discipline Catholicism and machismo in the very toxic way from like our Latine communities. Like I never, I never entertained like coming out. I was just like, oh, this is just like something that’s in me that I don’t necessarily like respond to much. So I was, I was like an absolute no because the men in my family wouldn’t accept me. My friends wouldn’t except me. Girls would look at me wrong. Like everything was, everything was bad. Then I came into my queerness and I came out as bisexual to my friends and to other people. And then, yeah, with this Andean spirituality, like there’s no judgment on me and what I like or feel or attract to. There’s only judgment on what I do to the earth. How am I behaving to my fellow person that came out of, you know, Lago Titicaca, right? Like we came out as clay figures out of this pond, This lake in Peru, so it’s like, that is more what I am judged on, right? Like, than through my sexuality.
Hoja Lopez: I have a question for either of you. But like, do you remember a time where religion served you, like Catholicism or that initial sort of like foray into it was, made you feel something?
Xorje Olivares: It was something positive or something negative?
Hoja Lopez: Yeah, something positive, yeah.
Xorje Olivares: I feel like the thing I will say and, uh, it’s funny cause I’m wearing my rainbow wristband today, is for about six or seven years, I was a part of a gay Catholic church group in New York city and there was something so beautiful about being able to during the sign of peace, like hug other men, other gay men, and give them like the little kiss on the side of the cheek as part of the offering of peace. And I would never be able to do that in my hometown. Or in most other churches in the United States, well, pretty much in the world. So I feel like that really reminded me that community in church, community with God, especially with other people who share this identity is part of that magic you were talking about a little bit earlier. So I’ll say that. That’s probably my positive interaction.
Luis Galilei: My positive interaction is gold jewelry. That shit was lit.
Hoja: What?
Luis Galilei: Yeah, dawg. The gold cross is like, every time you did something, first communion, I got my first gold cross, and I was like, whoa, this is lit. I’m going to wear it everywhere. Especially for Latinos, I don’t know, that gold jewelry thing is almost like, oh, shit, I’m out here now.
I will say the most meaningful positive thing that I’ve had with that is becoming my little cousin’s Godfather. I was like, this, I was just like, I do, I feel him. He’s in the room. You know what I mean? Like he’s like giving me, he’s giving me the opportunity to be a father figure. Again, I have a lot to do with like my absent father, like with my traumas and everything. So like, I was this is incredible. even though I don’ believe in the practice that we’re doing here, I believe in You and I accept this responsibility through Your hands. I felt very divinely charged. I was like, OK, this is my commitment and I love that there’s a word for it.
Hoja Lopez: Padrino is a very gay term padrino. It’s like yeah, it’s like it’s adding sort of like a little flair at the end of body.
Xorje Olivares: I love the little hands, it’s like, how did he know I am?
Hoja Lopez: Padrino
Xorje Olivares: Wait, Hoja, do you have a positive moment?
Hoja Lopez: Yeah, in Venezuela, we have a big mix of like santeria and Catholicism and those things really kind of weave interchangeably. And so we have lot of really amazing like female figures as kind of heads of church, and they really take this sort of almost like God-like aspects to themselves. We have La Virgen de Coromoto, de Chiquinquirá, La Virgain Maria, but we also have this woman called Maria Leonza. And Maria Leonza is this very like muscular, gorgeous, like almost like witch figure that is like mainstream in Venezuela. And I just remember her being the first woman that I ever saw that wasn’t like thin, that wasn’ frail, that wasn’t white. And so to me, it was kind of like queerness in her. I saw a lot of like otherness in her that I really identified with. And Maria Leónza has always been something that like accompanies me in my life now.
Xorje Olivares: I want to end with this last question, which is I want to see if you have a an image in your head when you think of the word God.
Hoja Lopez: I mean, this is just the first thing that came to mind, but I think I see myself alone. I see my self like on a bench and I’m fed, I’m not thirsty, I don’t have any need that needs to be fulfilled. And there’s beautiful weather and I feel the breeze on my face and in my hair and I’m breathing deeply and I don’t even have to meditate on purpose. I don’ have to think on purpose, I don’t have to not think on the purpose. I think it’s just like when I’m being. And I have a lot of those moments in my life where I get to just… Just kind of be. I would say that’s the image that comes to mind for me.
Xorje Olivares: That is so beautiful. I love that.
Luis Galilei: God, I want to copy that so bad, there’s so much better than what I was thinking.
Xorje Olivares: What were you thinking Luis?
Luis Galilei: Well, you said, what does God look like? And then I was like, I just, I don’t know. The sun came into my mind. Cause like, again, that’s like my, like the Andean thing. Cause it gives life to so much. But then I’m like, all right, what would it be? So I’m, like, and then, and I was like, oh, black trans Jesus. That’s, that, that what he looks like
Hoja: [Laughter]
Luis Galilei: and she’s fabulous and she can vogue. But then I was like, no, come on, what is it? And I came down to like a voice, just like the voice in my head, not the bad voice, not that one, but the voice that like my intuition, I guess, the voice that sends the signal to my stomach to go for something, even though I’m nervous about it. The voice that says the signal to my legs to get myself out of a situation because it just doesn’t feel right. Like that holds the mirror up to me in certain situations. And like, is this, how do you want to act in this situation? Like, you know what you want to be in the example you want to be, is how that person would act? It’s the voice in my head. It’s, it’s the intuition that guides me without me asking for it. But I think that’s what God is, God’s a voice.
Xorje Olivares: Um, I will say I, one thing that I appreciate that somebody told me, especially in this, um, gay Catholic group that I was a part of is that God’s pronoun is God. And so this understanding that there’s a gender to him, her, they, that it’s just God and you have to appreciate God. And for me, I appreciate it. And for me I see God, you know, those hugs that you give people when you either, you haven’t seen them in a very long time, or you realize like, my God, I have so much love for you. Those like intense bear hugs. I feel like that is such a manifestation of God and God’s love and like being able to transfer whatever that energy is into an interaction with another person. I’m getting chills now just thinking about it. It’s just like, there’s something so beautiful about.
Hoja Lopez: If I could, I would give you both one of those hugs right now.
Hoja Lopez: I’d sniff you both. I’d get in there. I take a big noseful of that.
Luis Galilei: I’ll squeeze, squeeze real tight
Xorje Olivares: Well, this has been such a fantastic conversation, not only about religion and queerness, but just being around two people who I love and admire so much and really make me think about my faith. And even though I might not look like the same one from catechism class, it’s still all an act of love. So. I cannot thank you enough for joining me for today’s call.
Hoja Lopez: Thank you for having me. And as my mom would say: Que dios me los bendigan, me los ampare, que los angelos reconozcan tu camino y iluminan cada uno de tus pasos. Every time I leave the house, baby.
Luis Galilei: Con Dios
Xorje Olivares: Well, I do want to let our listeners know that if you want to follow any one of my guests, just go to our show notes, all of their information where you can see them on social, where you could possibly see them live, all that will be there. And if you want to send us either your own experience with religion or a topic you’d like to have us cover on hyphenation, just email us at hyp at kqed.org. But until then, go in peace.
Hyphenación is a KQED Studios production. It’s produced by Ana De Almeida Amaral, Alex Tran, and Xorje Olivares. Chris Hambrick is our editor. Mixing and mastering by Christopher Beale. Jen Chien is executive producer, and KQED’s director of podcasts. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local. The Hyphenación team is supported by our audience engagement producer Maha Sanad; podcast operations intern Alana Walker; podcast operations manager Katie Sprenger; video operations manager Vivian Morales; and our Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. Special thanks to Chris Egusa, Martina Castro, Paulina Velasco and Megan Tan for their development support.
