The help of Pope Francis to Torvaianica transgender prostitutes

Article by Frank Hornig published in the weekly Der Spiegel (Germany) n.2 of January 4, 2025, pp.80-81, freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata project

They live in shacks without electricity on the outskirts of Rome and work as prostitutes. But transgender people from Latin America have found surprising help.

When the parish priest Don Andrea Conocchia was distributing food and medicines outside his church on a winter day of 2020, something strange happened. As had happened for the whole week, people were in the queue. There were 300, perhaps 400. The pandemic had started, Italy was in full "Lockdown. Many people have lost their jobs and have not received any help from the state. They were hungry.

The priest of Torvaianica, a suburb of Rome, knew almost all the people waiting, at least of sight. But that afternoon he saw a new face. A Argentine transsexual prostitute was spent in front of him and looked at him shyly. "He called himself Paola," recalls Andrea Conocchia. "Father, please," he said, "can you help me how you do with others?". They were given to canned pasta and tomatoes, coffee, biscuits and milk.

Paola returned the next day. He had brought a friend with him. The following day came three, then four. Soon there were 150 trans trap in the queue for food, most of which from Latin America.

The priest and prostitutes started talking and trust has grown, he says. After two or three weeks, Paola approached him with three friends. "Don Andrea, we have to pay the rent, but we don't know how" they said to him.

Conocchia thought about it. Then he had an idea. "Are you Argentini, true, just like Pope Francis?" he asked them. “Tell him your life in a beautiful letter and talk to him about your situation. I am sure that Pope Francis will help you ”.

The Catholic Church is not exactly famous for its tolerance. There is his rigid sexual morality. There is his discriminatory attitude towards sexual minorities.

There are the contemptuous comments on people who do not live the traditional family image of the Church. In recent months, Francesco has twice used a language considered offensive towards gays.

The Pope also launched signs of opening in daily life. But when it comes to Catholic doctrine, it is relentless.

In April he signed a document entitled "Dignity without limits" ("Infinite dignitas"). Sometimes it looks like a furious general attack in the world beyond Catholic doctrine.

Francesco finds the theory of gender in particular "very dangerous". According to the text, it gives in to the "secular temptation" of the man to "make God". In particular, trans people are criticized. According to Francesco, "every intervention that alters the genre" involves the danger of "threatening" human dignity.

At first glance, the Pope and the trans community are not a beautiful couple.

Don Conocchia recalls that shortly afterwards he went to find Paola and his three friends at home. He had wondered why they hadn't given him their letters for some time to Francesco and had delivered them to them and pens. "They started crying," he says. "Don Andrea, we cannot tell the Holy Father that we are prostitutes and how we live", they said to him. "I had 15 to 18 customers a day, one after the other," he confessed one of them, sobbing.

In the end they started writing and drawing hearts on the letters for Francesco. "They became letters imbued with tears," says the priest. He sent them.

Torvaianica is one of the numerous seaside resorts in the south-west of Rome. The highways bring from the capital through fields and industrial areas to the coast.

Here, on the roadside, the transsexuals await customers. Late at night they return to their homes, which are often huts in a pine forest behind the beach, without water, heating or electricity.

A Saturday at the end of the autumn, many of them returned to the parish of Don Andrea. They still need his help after pandemic. Many of the prostitutes are in the country illegally. They do not have health insurance and often have serious health problems. "The silicone of the Bricolage shop are inject to the breast and then the wounds are quickly infected," says the priest, describing typical cases. This Saturday therefore it offers him free visits with volunteer doctors.

Consuelo sits in front of the center of Mobile for visits next to the church and waits for his turn. “I am 53 years old now. Never before a priest spoke to me. On the contrary: they discriminated at me. I believe in God, but I have always been afraid to go to the church. "

Consuelo brings long and dark hair, lipstick and a red glass pearl necklace. He looks at you with serious and sad eyes. Then he makes a deep breath and tells the story of his life.

“When I was nine years old and I discovered my sexuality, my parents kicked me out at home in Colombia. Since then I have lived on the street. I tried to find work, but people like me can't work in my country. At one point I ended up in prostitution. "

At 18 he was enough. "In Colombia they kill people like me. Gay and trans are killed on the street. I saved myself in Italy."

His stories cannot be verified. But the others in the churchyard of the Church tell similar stories, speak of violence in their countries of South American origin, of the escape from Uruguay, Argentina or Peru, of the greater security and freedom they have experienced in Italy. "For a long time we felt in Heaven," says one of them.

Then came the pandemic and questioned many things. "I had nothing to eat. When I was infected by Covid as AIDS patient, I went to pray in the church of Torvaianica," says Consuelo. "I thought I would die." Don Andrea provided her with food and medicines. Consuelo begins to cry. "He welcomed me with open arms."

In the Vatican there is the alms of his holiness ", Konrad Krajewski. The Polish cardinal realizes the works of charity in favor of the poor in the name of the Pope. Father with him wrote to him an e-mail and he spoke to him of the financial needs of his faithful transsexuals." The answer arrived 30 seconds later, "he says." No problem, Andrea ", as soon as he had received the cardinal; interested people, he would have helped.

The priest then sent letters to the Vatican every week and every week money came to his parish. 200, 300, 500 euros per person, who distributed to prostitutes.

"They couldn't believe it," he says. Really, from the pope? ", They said, and:" We want to meet him. We want to thank the Holy Father personally ".

Andrea Conocchia is 54 years old. When she is around with her sunglasses, the gray beard in patches and the blue duvet, it visually distinguishes itself from its colleagues conservative priests.

The meeting with trans people has electrified him, he says, perhaps also because he broke his routine made of religious functions, baptisms and funeral.

He is moved, he says, since the fact that skepticism in his parish is slowly fading. That even the longtime parishioners are now greeting prostitutes on the street. Conocchia believes that the Catholic Church can change.

But how to convince the Pope to meet Paola and other transsexuals? He called an old acquaintance, Sister Geneviève Jeanningros of the nearby city of Ostia. "Geneviève", he said, "you are the key to the heart of Pope Francis".

The ultraottanenne French nun has a legendary reputation in Vatican environments. Not only because, until his retirement this autumn, he lived with a nun in a small caravan, between jugglers and carousels in Ostia. But also for his friendship with Pope Francis, who has visited her twice.

"The trans would like to meet you and thank you for your help," Sister Geneviève writes to her old friend. And he accepted. From the spring of 2020, she or Don Andrea go to St. Peter's Square almost every week with three or four prostitutes for the general hearing, so that one by one 150 can greet Francesco.

"It is always a pleasure. There has never been any prejudice on her part, blesses them, she lets himself embrace," says Don Andrea. He pulls his phone out and shows the letters with which the Pope responded to the letters of the trans.

Then he reads what the Holy Father wrote to him, the young priest of Torvaianica. "Dear brother, thanks for everything you do for the people of the LGBTQ+community. I'm close to you."

"I've never lived such experience," says Don Andrea. For Francis, people and their destinies are more important than doctrine: "The Holy Spirit will never give us a Pope like this again".

The priest continues to deal with his trans community. Many of the group are ahead with the years. Paola has returned to Argentina. Some struggle with alcohol and drug problems and continue to earn money on the roadside. Others have changed his career and work in geriatric assistance or in the nursing sector.

And then there is Angelina Diacono. He discovered his female sexuality at the age of 14. At 18 he ran away from the house. He is now 43 years old and dreams of a new life. "If God will allow me, I would like to become a nun and help people in the war areas," he says.

A Sunday afternoon in November, in the Vatican you can breathe an atmosphere of celebration. In the large hearing room next to the Basilica of San Pietro, the tables are stored with flowers and fruit. A brass band plays while Francesco is pushed into his wheelchair among the applause of the guests.

The Pope invited people to a "lunch for the poor", as they call him in the Vatican. As many as 1,300 people accepted the invitation, including Don Andrea and 43 transsexuals of his parish. Two of them were even allowed to sit at Francesco's table.

"It was wonderful," says Milagros while he leaves the room with the others after the meal. For a moment he becomes melancholy, thinking of Argentina, his country of origin and that of Francesco. "For years we have been excluded, from the Church and the company," he says, "and many of us have lost their lives".

Walk with other friends along the upper walls of the Vatican as a class on school trip. They chat excited, happy with the small gifts they received from the Pope. "I hope", says Milagros, "that one day we will belong to it. That we will simply be part of the company".

Then they get on the bus that takes them back to Torvaianica. To their homes, to their shacks in the pine forest.

Original text: Franziskus hilft Sexarbeiterinnen. Wirklich, der Papst?