Queer and Catholic

This superb memoir of a gay, working class boy from Manchester exploring how to reconcile his sexuality with his Catholicism is all the more powerful because of his deep knowledge of and commitment to his faith. Spanning the late 1960s to the present day, Mark Dowd’s Queer and Catholic chronicles a changing attitude to same-sex attraction over more than half a century and is packed with stories in turn funny, deeply moving and spiritually insightful, including: coming out to his parents by talking in his sleep, training to become a Dominican priest before eloping from a religious order with an ex friar, and attending the funeral of his father – accompanied by his father!

Mark Dowd

Mark Dowd is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist who has worked for the BBC, Channel 4, The Times and the Guardian. His cutting-edge documentaries include Queer and Catholic, Abused and Catholic, Tsunami: Where was God? and God is Green. Dowd was raised a Roman Catholic and studied to be a priest at Blackfriars, Oxford before choosing a career in journalism.