More than the ‘Mafia’: St Gallen diocese promotes drag show in Switzerland
A Diocese of St. Gallen chaplaincy is co-organizing a drag event with a church-employed theologian moderating and attempting to connect drag to the Catholic faith.
St. Gallen Cathedralconnie2607/Shutterstock
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Wed Sep 16, 2026 - 2:25 pm EDT
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(LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic pastoral office of St. Gallen, Switzerland, is co-organizing a free drag event in a public hall, and a church-employed liturgist will moderate it on stage this Friday evening.
Titled “Deep Drag – Memory and Hope,” the program will feature a St. Gallen “drag performer” referred to as “Lupa Nova” and “drag queen Amélie Putain” who, accordingto local media, are “working together with the city chaplaincy of Katholisch St.Gallen.”
The St. Gallen Catholic Church website highlights an advertisement for the event.
The format mixes “drag performances” with interviews and discussion facilitated by Ann-Katrin Gässlein, identified as an employed theologian in the pastoral offices the Catholic Church in St. Gallen, and a research assistant at the Chair of Liturgy Studies of the University of Lucerne.
According to a report by traditional Catholic writer and commentator Chris Jackson, Gässlein “even finds a theological analogy between drag and Christianity: ‘transformation,’ she argues, stands at the center of Catholic faith. She says the collaboration is meant to send a signal for diversity within society and the Catholic Church.”
In response to this presentation, Jackson clarified that “Christian conversion means the old man dies so that the new man may live in Christ. Drag deliberately manipulates the symbols of sex and identity as performance. These are hardly the same spiritual movement.”
He argues that post-conciliar pastoral practice meets every cultural fashion with “dialogue”—a rave, Pride, drag—and has forgotten that Christianity can simply say no: “No hostility toward the person. No humiliation. Just no.”
The St. Gallen Mafia has become notorious among Catholics as a group of likeminded prelates who discussed together in the 199os and early 2000s revolutionary changes to the Church and possible successors to Pope John Paul II. They are believed to have formed a voting block against the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope in 2005 and to have assisted in the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in 2013.
READ: The St. Gallen Mafia is the key to understanding Pope Francis
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- Ann-Katrin Gässlein
- Catholic
- Catholic Church
- Catholic Church in Switzerland
- chris jackson
- Diocese Of St. Gallen
- Drag
- Drag Queen
- Heresy
- heterodoxy
- Homosexuality
- Katholisch St.Gallen
- Lgbt
- St. Gallen
