Book Review - Queer Saints: A Radical Guide to Magic, Miracles, and Modern Intercession
Folks who have been following my work for a while know that I was raised Roman Catholic. However, I was raised a very particular type of Roman Catholic because I grew up with the Cuban side of my family. There was a heavy dose of mysticism that involved saints. There was a saint for every problem and occasion. There were agreements entered into in exchange for healing or prosperity. My grandparents have had a three-foot tall statue of Santa Barbara longer than I’ve been alive where they regularly left fresh water and roses, and hosted an overnight vigil for her feast day, because she was the adopted saint for our family. I still carry a prayer card in my wallet that my grandmother gave me almost twenty years ago.
As I’ve worked to heal the spiritual wound in me from coming out as gay while still in the Church I’ve spent a decade reclaiming the aspects of this folk magic that feel like home. One of the ways I’ve done this is by leaning into the practice of creating, recognizing, and working with folk saints. I have created Queer Ancestor prayer cards, found novena candles featuring James Baldwin and Divine, and recognize feast days honoring the activists that came before me.
Queer Saints: A Radical Guide to Magic, Miracles, and Modern Intercession by Antonio Pagliarulo is the book I wish I had ten years ago.
This book is an amazing resource for anyone interested in the history of sainthood, the veneration of folk saints, and how to merge our queer divinity into a rich and vibrant spiritual practice. What I love the most about this book is how accessible it is regardless of your familiarity with sainthood or working with these figures. What ties all of it together is a deeply personal narrative of how Pagliarulo’s own upbringing provided the foundation for what is, at its core, a deeply liberatory spiritual practice for queer and trans folks.
A review of this book would not be doing it justice if I did not explicitly point out what I feel is Pagliarulo’s most incredible contribution to queer spirituality: a 106-page index of Queer Saints. This is by no means the definitive listing of Queer Saints, and the book tells you as much as well as guides you on how to find figures that work for you, but this is an absolutely rich resource for queer and trans spiritual practitioners. In my own work teaching on Queer Ancestor veneration one of the biggest obstacles folks share with me is “I just don’t know where to find information on these folks”. And, while part of what I teach is how to conduct queer historical research, it is a difficult and time-consuming practice. (And I can only churn out so many Queer Ancestor Spotlights on my blog!)
The index provided in Queer Saints makes this practice so much more accessible to folks. Not only does it provide a diverse set of saints for you to explore, ranging from Alan Turing to Bayard Rustin to Divine to Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, it also showcases some real deep cuts in our shared history that most folks have likely never heard of before. This includes folks like Albert Cashier, Christine Jorgenson, Moms Mabley, and We’Wha. Not only does this resource help to overcome the “I just can’t find them!” obstacle, it also helps highlight that we were everywhere which I’m sure will inspire others to hunt down their own Queer Saints.
In addition to providing a broad range of Queer Saints to work with, this index also lists magical correspondences, rituals, and ideas of ways you might engage in magical petitions with them.
Queer Saints: A Radical Guide to Magic, Miracles, and Modern Intercession is out now through Weiser Books. You can purchase a copy here. (Please note, this is my affiliate link to Bookshop.org so I do make a small commission.)
