TORVAIANICA, Italy: A community of transgender women has found support and hope in this working-class seaside town south of Rome thanks to a remarkable bond they developed with the pope during the worst of the pandemic. Pope Francis ‘ recent welcome gesture for transgender Christians has resonated strongly there.
These people now attend Francis ‘ Wednesday common people on a monthly basis, where they are given VIP seats, thanks to the local church pastor. On any given time, they get handouts with money, shampoo, and medication. The Vatican bussed them into its medical center when Covid-19 struck so they could receive vaccinations before the majority of Italians.
To commemorate the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Poor on Sunday, the women—many of whom are Spanish American immigrants and prostitutes—joined over a thousand different underprivileged and poor people for lunch in the Vatican hall.
The menu demonstrated Francis ‘ belief that those who were least fortunate should be treated with the utmost respect, including cannelloni pasta with spinach and ricotta at the outset, sausages with tomato-basil sauce and cauliflower puree for dessert, and dessert with petit legs.
It was merely the most recent act of participation by a pope who has made extending his papacy’s commitment to the LGBTQ+ community clear in both word and deed for the Torvaianican community of disadvantaged trans people.
The temple was previously closed to us. According to Andrea Paola Torres Lopez, a Colombian transgender woman by the name of Consuelo whose kitchen is adorned with images of Jesus,” They did n’t see us as normal people, 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 philosophy office that claimed transgender people could occasionally be baptized and serve as guardians and testimony in weddings. It came after the bishop himself recently suggested that same-sex people might be granted church blessings.
In both instances, the new declarations overturned the same-sex gifts announced in 2021 and the complete bans on trans people serving as guardians issued by the Vatican philosophy office in 2015.
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 everyone is a child of God, is loved by God and pleasant in the temple, starting with his well-known” Who am I to judge” remark in 2013 about an ostensibly gay priest and his claim in January that “being queer is no crime.”
The rest of the Catholic Church does not always hold the same judgment-free position. New synods of bishops and laypeople in the Vatican backed off dialect that explicitly called for the acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics. Cardinals and other traditionalist Catholics have vehemently criticized his strategy.
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 transgender community in Torvaianica—a material indication that the bishop knew them, had heard their tales, and wanted to let them know they belonged to his church.
For transgender girls like herself, Carla Segovia, a 46-year-old Brazilian sex worker, claimed that being the caregiver is the closest thing she will ever have to having borne children of her own. She claimed that the new expectations helped her feel more confident about possibly one day fully regaining the trust she was baptized in but abandoned after coming out as transgender.
She claimed that in order to completely reconcile with the belief,” this standard from Pope Francis brings me closer to finding that total serenity.”
A 55-year-old trans tailor and housekeeper named Claudia Vittoria Salas claimed she had already been a caregiver to three of her nieces and nephews up residence in Jujuy, in north Argentina. She choked up as she thought back to paying for her godchildren’s education with the money she made from her previous job as a woman.
It’s taking the place of the mother or father, being a caregiver is major role, she said as her words broke. ” 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 staff showed up at the Rev. Andrea Conocchia’s temple on the principal square of the city was begging for food because they had run out of money.
As the pandemic and financial hardships persisted, Conocchia got to know the ladies better and encouraged them to read to Francis to request assistance. They wrote their papers one evening while seated around a stand.
He recalled that” the websites of the first four papers were bathed in grief.” ” Why?” Father, I’m ashamed, and I ca n’t tell the pope what I did or how I lived because they told me that.
However, they did, and the bishop’s chief almsgiver provided the primary aid. A year later, he accompanied the ladies for their Covid- 19 vaccinations. Many of the people had no access to the vaccination and were not legally permitted to live in Italy at the time the pandemic occurred.
Francis finally asked to meet them.
Salas joined a class from Torvaianica to express gratitude to Francis at his public audience on April 27, 2022, after receiving the shot at the Vatican. 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. ” I started crying at that point.”
Salas was seated at Francis ‘ table in the Vatican auditorium on Sunday. She claimed that in order to prepare him more meat empanadas for his dinner, she had gotten up at 3 a.m. They’re also attractive, she said.
For Canocchia, Francis’s reaction 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 flock, particularly those who are most marginalized.
For the ladies, it’s just a recognition that they’re important.
Torres Lopez remarked,” At least they remember us, that we are on Earth and have n’t been abandoned and left to the whims of the wind.”
