“We were invisible…”
#PopeFrancis #LGBTQ #TransRights #Faith #LoveWins
Torvaianica is a stretch of land next to the sea. It is also the place where, in recent years, some of the most honest experiences of Gospel proximity have taken shape. In these days, along that shoreline filled with salt and stillness, many feel the emptiness left by Pope Francis. For many transgender women who have lived through exclusion, the encounter with him was the first real gesture from the Church, not through doctrine, but through listening.
It was March 2020, the beginning of the pandemic. Don Andrea Conocchia, parish priest of the Beata Vergine Immacolata church, brought four transgender women to a general audience with the Pope. He had told them to write letters to Pope Francis. To tell their stories and what they had been through. Then he had those letters delivered. He did not expect what would happen next.
“Very often we trans people are excluded. The Church doesn’t look at us, it refuses to open its doors. Don Andrea welcomed us right away. Pope Francis let us enter the Vatican. We were able to embrace him, speak with him, attend Mass, and listen to him. Who could have ever expected such a thing,” says Camilla, moved.
Her words carry the tone of someone whose dignity has been restored without being asked to prove anything. Don Andrea, walking along the seafront, his eyes behind round glasses, recalls: “Every time I met him, he would ask how the members of the community were doing, he remembered the names, the stories.”
There was nothing spectacular, just faithfulness to the Gospel of relationship, where no one is forgotten, not even those erased from liturgies and public voice.
Minerva sits on a bench in the church courtyard, hands folded in her lap and a smile lighting up her face. “Before, we were invisible, but not anymore. We are part of the community; we are people like anyone else.” She has lived in Torvaianica for years and works in a small grocery store. Since 2020, she has been attending the parish, day after day, finding her place in the small seaside community.
Like Minerva, Camilla too found in that church a place where she felt seen. But today, her gaze is veiled with sadness. The news of Pope Francis’ death felt like a blow to the heart. Her eyes are filled with tears, her voice broken by a mix of grief and uncertainty.
“Pope Francis took so many steps forward. What frightens me now that he’s gone is that we could go backward. Sometimes that happens, you take one step forward and three back. We have to keep being empathetic. No one asked to be born this way. We are this way because of God’s will. If God didn’t want us here, we wouldn’t be here.”
These words don’t ask permission. They simply exist. Like a tear in the veil of the Church that, for a time, paused, listened, and embraced.
What remains now is a responsibility: to continue. To ensure that what was born out of the courage of proximity does not disappear into nostalgia or fear. That the doors which opened are not closed again. And that the step taken, with effort and care, becomes the first of many.