January 13, 1998. Alfredo Ormando, gay and Catholic, sets himself on fire in St. Peter's
Edited by Piero Montana
On 13 January 1998 Alfredo Ormando, a thirty-nine year old Sicilian, native of San Cataldo (Caltanissetta), a homosexual with aspirations and ambitions as a writer, burned himself alive in St. Peter's in Rome, dousing himself in petrol and setting himself on fire with a lighter.
Rescued by a policeman, who tried to put out the flames on him with his uniform jacket, Ormando died in hospital after 9 days of agony.
His is not the gesture of a madman, on the contrary it is a lucid, conscious, calculated gesture, prepared in all its smallest details. It is an unprecedented gesture, never attempted before, of extreme protest against the Vatican.
What we are therefore proposing here is not an interpretation of the facts that actually happened, historically occurred and reported in the news pages of national newspapers. It is the naked exposition of the existential drama of an "irregular", a drama flared up in all its virulence due to an existence lived in the daily hell of scorching marginalization.
From the curse, from the damnation of this marginalization, from the heart of a boundless solitude, Alfredo Ormando's last and desperate letters reach us, intended by the author for posterity, and of which, for the first time, we are publishing excerpts with rather touching and painful tones .
In fact, it is not a question here of putting this or that or more people in a good or bad light, but of focusing all our attention on the drama of a life ruined due to repression and anti-gay prejudice in a social context, such as that of the deep south, very retrograde, obtuse and provincial.
The meaning of this pilgrimage and of the "final gesture" performed by Ormando in St. Peter's is so evident that it does not need to be supported by explanations other than those provided by the author of these letters. And yet if we are to believe these letters, we cannot consider Ormando a saint, a hero, a madman.
In becoming a human torch, an Easter candle in the Vatican, we think that Ormando not only wanted to shed light on the darkness of the obscurantism of a Catholic, homophobic and medieval morality, but also on the grayness of his life as an outcast, on the drama of an unbearable human story, dripping with tears and blood.
Ormando's is not the lesson of a suicide bomber or a martyr, on the contrary it is a human lesson, too human. The lesson of those who, by choosing to die, no longer want to be stoned, wounded daily for their homosexuality, the lesson of those who at the stake want, at the same time, to shed light with the fuel of their body on the submerged suffering of their own and others due to the mentality , of the sexophobic morality of the Church.
From the last letters of Alfredo Ormando
The last autograph letters of Alfredo Ormando, dated 11 November '97, 27 November '97, 8 December '97, Christmas '97, 2 January '98, 4 January '98 dedicated to a friend from Reggio Emilia, who wishes to remain anonymous, they will never be sent for understandable reasons of caution on the part of the author, who did not want to be stopped in his suicidal intention. They will remain in the drawer as they are written for posterity.
By Ormando's express wish we have therefore collected, albeit in part, this legacy to make known, through the fragmentary publication of the passages chosen from these letters, the written and declared reasons for such a shocking suicide.
The letter dated Christmas '97 and the one for posterity, sent a few days before the suicide to the Ansa agency in Rome, are presented here in their entirety, the first as it is already known, since it has been published in its entirety elsewhere, the second as it was sent by Ormando himself so that its contents would be known.
Palermo, 11 November 1997
Dearest (friend), I am writing another letter for the use and consumption of posterity...(1) I have decided to put an end to life, every illusion of redeeming myself through my writings has collapsed. I'm tired of seeing myself isolated, marginalized.
What is it worth living when you are not loved and respected. I have maternal love and that of «Y» is true, but this does not cover the ostracism of people and even family members.
It's too much, I can no longer find a valid reason to give meaning to my life, perhaps a tenuous, banal hold...
I feel like a plague victim, a leper with bells tied to my feet to warn people to stay away from me.
I wonder if a man who is already dead can be considered a suicide... Why do I have to live? I can't find a single reason why I should continue this torture...
I'm thinking of spending Christmas in Palermo with my mother and «Y», in January of going to Rome and setting myself on fire in St. Peter's Square... but will I still be of this opinion? Yet there are less than two months, I will finally be able to start living, because dying is living...
Those few minutes of suffering will be repaid with the cessation of all sorrows, of all disagreements. In the afterlife I will make no one's hair stand on end or their nose wrinkle because I am a homosexual.
I don't understand why people make such a point of reminding me that I'm gay. I know that I am gay and I have a good memory and good knowledge of myself. Why then repeat and repeat to myself that I am a fagot? I don't understand this fury against me.
I do not lead anyone astray from the right path of heterosexuality. Anyone who comes to bed with me is mature, adult, consenting and homosexual or bisexual. I really want to end it: I hope to finally succeed as soon as possible.
Palermo, 27 November 1997
Dearest (friend), this time I'm serious. If before I found many reasons to live, now I find just as many reasons to stop. I have reached the end of the line, my life cycle is about to end, I feel it inevitably.
I have now entered the tunnel of death where the only way out is St. Peter's Square... I realize that suicide is a form of rebellion against God, but I can no longer live; in truth I am already dead.
I am eager to go to Rome and there leave a life that has always been a condemnation for me.
Palermo, 8 December 1997
Dearest (friend), between Friday evening and Saturday afternoon I destroyed all the photos of me, I destroyed the negatives and shredded the group ones, removing my image.
I don't even have a photo left, just the one of my driving license and city bus pass.
It's as if I never existed. Unfortunately, the memories remain archived in a dark recess of my brain and I can't really tear them up and shred them like I did with the photos. …
I don't want this mendacious material to survive me. Who would ever care to see my imbecile face? Maybe I wasn't humiliated enough in life to continue to be the object of ridicule even in death?
With the excuse of sorting out "Y's" photos too, I destroyed his as well, saving the ones that showed him alone and deleting the ones where we were both. «Y» cried a lot about this and it gave me a lot of pain, but I carry out a plan that he doesn't know about.
Palermo, Christmas 1997
Dear (friend), this year I no longer feel Christmas, it is indifferent to me like all things, there is nothing that can bring me back to life. My preparations for suicide proceed inexorably, I feel that this is my destiny.
I have always known it and never accepted it, but this tragic fate is there waiting for me with a painstaking patience that is incredible.
I have not been able to escape this idea of death, I feel that I cannot avoid it, much less pretend to live and progress for a future that I will not have: my future will be nothing other than the continuation of my present. I live with the awareness of someone who is about to leave earthly life and this does not horrify me, on the contrary!
I can't wait to end my days; they will think I'm crazy because I decided to set fire to St. Peter's Square while I could have done it in Palermo too.
I hope they will understand the message I want to give: it is a form of protest against the Church which demonizes homosexuality, while demonizing Nature at the same time, because homosexuality is its daughter.
Palermo, 2 January 1998
Dear (friend), a new year has begun but it is not for me, within the month I will have already implemented my disastrous resolution. …
Last Wednesday was a beautiful day for me, the preparations for the New Year's Eve dinner had given me a great desire to live, but it only lasted one day and that was it, after that the funereal thoughts had returned to keep me company.
... Sometimes it takes very little to be happy and just as little to be unhappy. For me it's a different matter, I've been living in prejudice and marginalization since I was ten years old, now I can no longer accept it, the measure is full.
…. I will be punished in the afterlife for my action, I hope for the understanding and justice of the good Lord, I am ready to pay the consequences, after all I am used to and trained in suffering. If I had had a couple of friends like you here I would have gladly accepted my life.
Palermo, 4 January 1998
Dear (friend), I can't wait to get on the road to end it in St. Peter's Square... The pain of feeling myself being burned alive no longer scares me. I will suffer for a few minutes, then the endorphins will help me bear the pain.
Compared to my life it is much preferable, at least it will last a few minutes. It's stupid of me to keep repeating the same things over and over again, I've said it all now. You know why I arrived at this solution.
FOR POSTERITY…
I apologize to the whole world for my nefarious crimes against that nature so dear and desecrated by Christianity.
I apologize for having come into the world, for having polluted the air that you breathe with my poisonous breath, for having dared to think and act like a man, for not having accepted a diversity that I did not feel, for having considered homosexuality a natural sexuality, for having felt equal to heterosexuals and second to none, for having aspired to become a writer, for having dreamed, for having laughed, for having killed my mother and an equally loved one with the bloody suppression of my useless existence.
The monster goes away so as not to disturb and offend you anymore, so as not to make you blush and embarrass and feel ashamed with his ignoble presence, so as not to make you disgusted and turn your back when you meet him on the street.
Don't allow me to have a tearful grave, that I become a plague victim even when dead. If the petrol hasn't done its job, reducing me to ashes, cremate me and scatter my ashes across the Roman countryside.
I would like to be useful at least as fertilizer. I make a heartfelt appeal for your understanding and generosity.
I have lived a life of hell that the Christians, in comparison, seems like a fairy tale to put children to sleep. The only outlet was my writings.
I wanted to redeem myself through fiction, but publishing wouldn't let me, and who would ever report a fagot? I was no longer able to deceive my biological desire to live, to come to terms with my marginalization, my boundless solitude.
