A group of transgender women has found support and hope in a working-class seaside town south of Rome where Pope Francis ‘ current gesture of welcome for transgender Christians has resonated strongly. This community was forged during the worst of the pandemic.
These ladies now make regular visits to Francis ‘ Wednesday public audiences, where they are given VIP seats, thanks to the local church pastor. They get handouts of medication, money, and shampoo every day. The Vatican bussed them into its medical service when COVID-19 struck so they could receive vaccinations before the majority of Italians.
These people, many of whom are Latin American immigrants who work as prostitutes, will join over a thousand different poor and impoverished people for breakfast on Sunday in the Vatican hall as Francis ‘ visitors to commemorate the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Poor. It is merely the most recent act of participation from a bishop who has made it his mission to reach out to the LGBTQ+ community in both word and deed for Torvaianica’s excluded trans community.
” The temple was previously closed to us. According to Andrea Paola Torres Lopez, a Brazilian trans woman by the name of Consuelo whose house is adorned with images of Jesus,” they did n’t see us as ordinary citizens, they saw the devil.” ” After that, Pope Francis showed up, and the church doors opened for us.”
Francis ‘ most recent effort was a report from the Vatican’s theory office that claimed transgender people could occasionally be baptized and serve as guardians and testimony in weddings. It came after the bishop himself recently made the suggestion that same-sex people might be granted church blessings.
Both times, the novel pronouncements overturned the Vatican theory office’s 2015 and 2021 total bans on same-sex blessings and transgender people serving as godparents, respectively.
Given that gay and trans people have long felt excluded and discriminated against by a church that formally teaches that queer acts are “intrinsically disordered,” important LGBTQ+ companies have embraced Francis ‘ message of equality.
Francis has changed his stance to extremely make it clear that all —” todos, too, so much,” is a child of God, is loved by God and pleasant in the chapel, starting with his well-known” Who am I to determine” comment in 2013 about an ostensibly gay priest and his claim in January that “being homosexual is no crime.”
The rest of the Catholic Church does not always share that judgment-free place. The latest church of bishops and laypeople at the Vatican backed off language that explicitly called for the acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics. Cardinals and other traditionalist Catholics have vehemently criticized his strategy. And according to a Pew Research Center study from 2022, 62 % of Christians in the United States think that the sex that is assigned at birth determines whether someone is male or female, while only 37 % believe that this can change.
GLAAD and DignityUSA claimed that Francis ‘ voice of incorporation may send a text to political and cultural leaders to finish their oppression, isolation, and prejudice against transgender people following his most recent statement about trans participation in church ceremonies.
It served as a more personalized information to the Torvaianica trans society, providing concrete evidence that the bishop was aware of them, had heard their stories, and wanted to inform them of their membership in his religion.
For trans women like herself, being a grandparent is the closest point she will ever have to having her own child, according to 46-year-old Brazilian sex worker Carla Segovia. She claimed that the new expectations helped her feel more confident about possibly one day fully regaining the trust she had been baptized in but abandoned after coming out as transgender.
She stated,” This Pope Francisnorm brings me closer to finding that utter serenity,” which she believes is required to be totally at peace with the trust.
A 55-year-old trans tailor and housekeeper named Claudia Vittoria Salas claimed that she had previously acted as the caregiver of three of her nieces and nephews up in Jujuy, northern Argentina. She choked up as she thought back to the money she had made from her previous job as a girl to pay for her godchildren’s education.
As her words broke, she remarked,” Being a caregiver entails taking the place of the mother or father, it’s no fun.” ” When the parents are n’t around, you have to pick the right people who will be capable of sending the kids to school and giving them food and clothing.”
During Italy’s tight COVID- 19 shutdown, Francis ‘ unexpected connection with the Torvaianica trans community started when one, then two, and then more intercourse workers showed up at the Rev. They had run out of money and were begging for food at Andrea Conocchia’s religion on the main square of the city.
As the pandemic and financial hardships persisted, Canocchia encouraged the people to read to Francis and request what they needed as he got to know them over time. They sat around a table one evening and wrote their papers.
He recalled that” the websites of the first four papers were bathed in grief.” ” Why?” I ca n’t tell the pope what I did or how I lived because they told me,” Father, I’m ashamed.
However, they did, and the bishop’s main almsgiver provided the first aid. A year later, he accompanied the women for their COVID-19 vaccinations. Many of the people lacked access to the vaccination and were not legally permitted to reside in Italy at the time the pandemic occurred.
Francis later requested to meet them.
Salas was one of those who received the shot at the Vatican before joining a team from Torvaianica to express gratitude to Francis on April 27, 2022, during his general market. A dish of baked chicken empanadas, a classic comfort food from their shared country, was brought by the Argentinian pope.
Salas recalled Francis ‘ next action after displaying the picture of the exchange on her phone:” He told the gentleman who receives the gifts to leave them with him, saying” I’m taking them for lunch,” she said. ” At that point, I began to sob.”
For Canocchia, Francis’s reply to Salas and the others has fundamentally altered him as a priest, teaching him the importance of paying attention to and listening to the lives and struggles of his congregation, particularly those who are most marginalized.
For the girls, it is merely a recognition of their importance.
Torres Lopez remarked,” At least they remember us, that we’re on Earth and have n’t been abandoned and left to the whims of the wind.”
