She showed up with the mask and a pair of big sunglasses, perhaps to take courage and defeat fear and shame. When Reverend Andrea Conocchia found himself in front of the door of the church of Beata Maria Immacolata in Torvaianica, a transsexual woman asking for something to eat the first reaction was the "surprise".
Then he rolled up his sleeves and packed her a food pack as he does with everyone who has been going to the parish since last March. So far he has distributed dozens of them to those who after the lockdown found themselves without a fixed income.
"We have helped at least 150 people, people who worked illegally or who did house cleaning, who have now lost their jobs and no longer know how to support themselves," the priest tells us on the phone. And among the "sectors" in crisis due to the pandemic there is also that of prostitution . "After the first trans we helped, several others came - Rev Andrea tells us - at the beginning I was amazed and amazed, in 24 years of priesthood I had never had such a thing, but I think they were sent by God . "
"If there had not been the coronavirus - it is better explained - probably they would never have entered the church" . And instead after receiving parcels of pasta, milk, biscuits and tomato puree, the parish priest saw some of them shell the rosary in front of the image of the Madonna. "They told me that since the streets were emptied as a result of the restrictive measures last March, their earnings have zeroed - continues the priest - and now they are no longer able to pay the rent or go shopping" .
The resources of the parish, however, are limited. And so Rev Andrea got the idea of writing directly to the Pope . "I thought about it because most of them are Argentinean or South American," continues the priest.
The "friends" then, as the parish priest calls them, took pen and paper and in Spanish, between drawings and hearts, they told Francesco their story. Their request for help, not only practical but also spiritual. "They asked him to pray for them and they assured them of their prayers," says the priest. "For some of them - he adds - it was a journey backwards into the maze of their existence: a woman with HIV was unable to stop crying while looking for words to describe her condition, others did not even feel like taking the pen in hand, for shame " .
In the end the letters were all posted, accompanied by a letter from the parish priest. "Within a few days the pope's almsman, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, replied and sent us an offer in cash," the priest explains to us on the phone. He does not tell us how much the contribution is but, he assures us, enough money has arrived on the parish's Iban to cover "the rent and the living expenses of each one". The money was distributed by the priest to the trans. "They didn't expect it, for them it was a surprise" , explains Don Andrea.
Behind the marked make-up and the affected manners, the priest remarks, there are stories full of pain and loneliness . Read more via il Giornale