Religion

This is why Gay Twitter™ is so obsessed with the 2025 papal conclave

An image of the conclave of cardinals at the Vatican with a RuPaul's Drag Race joke superimposed on top

The LGBTQ+ community have really been getting a kick out of the 2025 papal conclave (Getty/X)

The LGBTQ+ community have really been getting a kick out of the 2025 papal conclave (Getty/X)

This May, there’s a huge camp competition taking LGBTQ+ social media by storm: and no, we’re not talking about Eurovision. We’re referring to the Vatican conclave: the assembly of cardinals electing the new pope.

Like Eurovision, the 2025 papal conclave features an array of jazzy outfits: although they’re quite samey. And, also like Eurovision, Gay Twitter (as we persist in calling it: Gay X sounds like an app you use to find glory holes in your area) is ablaze with funny memes and reactions to the event.

One popular joke is to compare the conclave to another TV contest where a group of people in dresses spend a lot of time in small rooms together as they compete to become the next chosen one: namely, Drag Race.

As far back as Easter Monday (21 April) when Pope Francis passed away, people started making Drag Race jokes and comparisons, and they haven't stopped since. It makes a change from worrying about what horrible thing Donald Trump will do next, we suppose.

Also, as an aside, this is a great idea:

However, true Drag Race/Conclave historians know that the joke goes back even further than that. Way back, in fact, to October 2024, when a film called Conclave, which is, unsurprisingly, also about a papal conclave, came out, and people immediately decided it resembled the iconic reality show hosted by RuPaul.

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Edward Berger’s mystery thriller Conclave largely follows Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes). When the Pope suddenly dies and his successor must be found, the Cardinal finds himself entrenched in secrets and scandals worthy of the werk room. Drag Race: Vatican City, anyone?

The diva-ish campness of Conclave inspired the creation of a parody social media account called Pope Crave: a play on the hugely popular entertainment account Pop Crave. As well as posting a lot of memes about the movie, Pope Crave also found time to publish a digital fan zine that has already raised an estimated $45,000 for charities including the Intersex Human Rights Fund — an homage to the film’s twist ending, Them reports.

Them also interviewed the account's anonymous creator, and asked: "Why do you think that so many queer people adore Conclave, a film about finding a leader for a denomination of Christianity that famously has many anti-LGBTQ+ stances?"

Pope Crave replied: "Well, I mean, I think we all saw the memes where it’s basically like RuPope’s Drag Race, it’s Gossip Girl 2.0, it’s Mean Girls. It’s men in dresses being bitchy to each other, and also there is an intersex character... and I just think that having this queer identity visibly represented on screen [is important]."

Now the actual conclave is happening, Pope Crave has found its time to shine: and it is glorious to see.

It also seems like Pope Crave is currently tweeting FROM the Vatican itself. Iconic:

And finally: another reason that Gay Twitter™ is leaning into the conclave discourse so heavily is the fact that hardline, anti-LGBTQ+ Catholics - of which there are a significant number around the world - will no doubt find the memes disrespectful, and many members of the LGBTQ+ community are more than happy about that.

After all, some of the front-runners to become the next pope have beliefs about queer people and what rights they should - or shouldn't - have, that are arguably even more disrespectful. So let us have our silly memes, while we sit and hope that the new pope will be a relatively progressive, rather than conservative, figure.

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