Last Updated on March 9, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
A gay Roman Catholic priest reveals his adventurous life and ministry in the cartoon-style memoir “My Life: as a Boy, Priest, Gay Man, and Artist” by Jan Haen. During more than a half-century of priesthood, Jan Haen found surprising ways to unite his inclusive spirituality, queer sexuality, and monumental artistry across the globe in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
Click here to purchase the book.
Jan Haen is a Dutch visual artist and openly gay Roman Catholic priest in the Redemptorist order. Born in 1944, he ministered in the Netherlands and South Africa, sailed the Caribbean as a Dutch naval chaplain, and painted nearly 200 mural projects around the world. He sparked both admiration and controversy by showing same-sex couples in his religious art. His previous books include “Heavenly Homos, Etc: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion and History” and its sequel, “Heavenly LGBTQ+.”
Released in fall 2023 for his 80th birthday, the new autobiography covers a lifetime of experiences. He was born in the Netherlands and moved with his family to South Africa at age 9. After ordination in 1969, Haen discovered his gay identity against the backdrop of a tradition-bound church.
Jan Haen describes his struggles as a gay Catholic priest on this page from his memoir “My Life.”
His struggles led him through a transformative personal odyssey, including a period of vulnerability when he became a mental-health patient at the same hospital where he once served as chaplain. Guided by faith and bolstered by support from the Redemptorist order in the Netherlands, Haen found courageous, creative ways to live authentically. At the heart of his narrative is his enduring partnership with a man named Ton, his beloved companion of nearly four decades.
Jan Haen and his life partner Ton travelled as a couple in Thailand.
Haen spent decades working with local people to paint murals in churches (Catholic and otherwise), schools, and public spaces, often amplifying untold stories. All in all, he completed 198 wall painting projects in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, England, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Ukraine, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and South Africa between 1994 and 2017.
One of Jan Haen’s many art projects was teaching participants to design and paint a large mural at Tsholofelo Community College in Boitekong, South Africa.
The book documents his historically important religious murals with LGBTQ-affirming imagery — including at least one that was removed due to objections by ultra-conservatives. The LGBTQ Catholic organization Dignity USA praised Haen’s work as “unique and intellectually stimulating.” His art appears online frequently in the LGBTQ Saints series at Q Spirit.
A gay man decided not to commit suicide when he saw Jan Haen’s painting of a cross with two men kissing at a cathedral in Montelimar, France.
Beyond his religious and artistic endeavors, Haen’s legacy is advocacy and action. He stood up for racial justice in South Africa and was declared persona-non-grata by the racist apartheid regime. Short, accessible prose lets the pictures tell his inspiring journey of gay faith.
“My Life” (ISBN 1958061549) is published by Apocryphile Press, a publisher and purveyor of fine books on religion, spirituality, philosophy and poetry. Their stated goal is to bring to market “books that ‘normal’ religious publishers wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole.” John Mabry is founder and editor-in-chief. Based in Hannacroix, New York, Apocryphile has published more than 300 books since 2004 — including “Art That Dares,” “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” and other books by Q Spirit founder Kittredge Cherry.
Reviews of “My Life” by Jan Haen
““The richness of his life is conveyed with a very natural, frank, and disarming writing style…. His talent for artistic endeavors is felt as a current that pulses throughout the book… This is a very fluid and unique autobiographical textual and visual work full of quirky, compassionate, and dryly amusing observations about his own life and his work—with a spiritual but sometimes dryly ironical tone towards the larger world around him whether it be discriminatory regimes, the racially insensitive or authoritarian microcosms…. One of the most affecting components of this book is Father Haen’s loving relationship with his life partner Ton. The joy, affection and love they have for one another is exuberantly portrayed through mutual interests, hobbies, travels, and work.”
— Dignity USA book review by David Friscic, March 2024
“Haen tells his own story. He doesn’t present himself as a saint the way he presents the other lives he tells about in the other books. But the simplicity of his story and his apparent willingness to keep pushing through shows him a kind of saint himself…. The autobiography is interesting, easily readable because it’s got so many pictures, and inspiring.”
— Book review by Toby Johnson, gay spirituality author, at tobyjohnson.com, November 2023
“Eloquently presented, impressively thought-provoking, and inherently fascinating…Highly recommended for personal, community, and college/university library collections.”
— Midwest Book Review, January 2024
Links related to Jan Haen as author, artist and priest
New illustrated book “Heavenly LGBTQ+” reveals queer icons from religion and history
New illustrated book “Heavenly Homos, Etc” shows queer icons from LGBTQ religion and history
An artist who communicates to the wounded world through colours (profile of Jan Haen in Redemptorists Scala News)
Jan Haen page at Apocryphile Press
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Top image credit:
by Jan Haen book cover and printed book open to pages on Simon Tseko Nkoli.
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit on Nov. 16, 2023 and most recently updated on March 9, 2024.
I was ordained the same year as Fr. Haen. for the Archdiocese of Chicago. I left Chicago in 1994 and moved to Atlanta to pursue a gay relationship. the relationship did not sork out, but I remained here and was eventually received into the Ecumenical Catholic Church without formally leaving the Roman Catholic Church. I am actually panecumenical, exercising music ministry in any Christian Church that will have me. Presently I am back home in the Malkite Catholic Byzantine Catholic Church, but I still have asmall mission at St. Sergius and bacchus Church that is housed in a former masterbedroom in my apartment with an icon row of gaylesbitrans saints.
I know both you and Jan Haen separately, so it is fascinating to learn that you were both ordained the same year. I’d say 1969 was a great time for ordination.