I'm lesbian and christian and i'm no longer afraid of being happy

Testimony of Francesca letta at Prayer in front of the crucifix for all victims of any discrimination with archbishop Giuseppe Satriano (Cathedral of Bari, 24 november 2023)

Discriminate derives from the Latin discrtreen which means separating, distinguishing. This was the feeling I felt when I admitted for the first time to my family who felt emotions for a girl, in front of the insults and contemptuous words that my ears heard.

"Infect, dirty, you are not worthy of this house, which you go to the church". How much noise made these words. At the time I was a 17 -year -old girl, I attended the group of the very young, I had good votes, I was committed to being the best version of me, in the unconscious slavery of everyone's approval, convinced that it should be a prize earning the freedom to be myself.

That despite this "dark side", To keep closed in the safe, I was a good girl, and that that place at the table, in the parish, among friends, among the relatives, in the world, I deserved it. In the meantime, I continued to crumble, to force smiles, not to perceive me as a person, not to know who I was or what I really wanted.

When I had no answers, disorganized, destroyed only by feelings of guilt and sharp judgments as blades by those who were going up almost a prophet, I looked for in my solitude, I looked at the sky and thought "but because you made me like this if I'm not so good, because you forced me to suffer all this"And in the meantime, I continued to fall in love, and to experience what it meant to really love someone, and I understood that the one for me"it was good and right”, Because I was happy.

I did not give up, and thanks also to the angels that he himself placed on my journey, I understood that I was listening to mouths without ears to listen, that it is easier to judge what is not known, rather than sitting at the table and being told a story; That many times, rather than training empathy, we err in judges without having the powers, and without having even had the example.

He did not judge the men who put him on the cross, the thieves next to him, but we allow ourselves to judge love, as he was up to us to choose then. I understood that the only mistake I had made, had not been to trust what he himself had created, and that where I saw dark, there was a lumin there that he just wanted to shed light, in my life and in that of others.

Because love made me alive, cheerful, committed, including also towards those who hunted me out of kicks, a sunflower who looks towards the sun, not with the passage downhill.

From that day about 10 years Have passed, i look at the mirror every morning and i am grateful to experience the immense joy of a pure love that illuminates my life every day, and that gives me the strength to treat the diseases of others.

I am grateful for the awareness that I am imperfect like all human beings, but that my imperfection does not depend on who my heart chooses, on the contrary. What I closed in the safe is the diamond that carries in the eye.

I am no longer afraid of being happy, because where discrimination has separated and destroyed, love has built and united.