A story of ordinary charity. Don Andrea, the trans people and the help of Pope Francis

Dialogue by Katya Parente with Don Andrea Conocchia, parish priest of Torvaianica (Rome)

A story of ordinary charity, which is also jumped to the honors of the news and who had as protagonists the parish priest of Torvaianica don Andrea Conocchia and the community of transsexual prostitutes, about twenty, who works at the gates of Rome. We said ordinary charity, because the evangelical message has the love towards others as supreme value - towards the little ones and the poor, those who best embody the suffering Christ. An ordinary gesture according to Don Andrea, who granted us a few minutes for an informal chat.

You are not the only one to help your community in this delicate period. Why, then, do you think your story jumped to the headlines?

I believe that more than my story, the interest and concrete help of Pope Francis has jumped to the headlines, through his alms, for what he has always defined the last ones, the discarded. An interest that has always been present, but which perhaps had never been made so publicly known. An interest in some people who perhaps too easily lead and judge, so much so that they even remove the courage even to knock on.

Why ask the Pope?

Having always been parish priest in suburban territories, and not having the opportunity, through the community, to offer help to the many people and families who turned to the parish for help, I have always turned to the Pope. I really mean the Church as a large family, in which you are always ready to welcome a guest and to add a place at the table.
This is also the beauty of the Church understood as a body that has many limbs. Not all of us, not all of us are all legs, not all of us, but we know we can ask each other for help to be able to be, in order to be able to offer help to those who need it.

Do you think your idea can be adopted by others too?

What idea? It is not an idea, it is simply to experience the Gospel concretely, leaving, looking, meeting, welcoming, listening. Leaving the person, from his value, from his very personal story, that none of us have the right to judge, but which it is important to understand, to make our listening to, and if necessary concrete help, linked to the real needs of those who turn to us.
Listen to the other to understand him and his experience, she and her needs, listen not to give answers, rather by offering questions that help in the search for meaning. I was very impressed by the resonance that my gesture had, absolutely normal for me.
Give help to the hungry, to dress the ignores, they are certainly not my words, yet having put them into practice has managed to capture general attention! Maybe we can ask ourselves why? Maybe we can change attitudes and ways of doing?

This dramatic time is, in other verses a time of grace ... What would you mean, at the end of this interview, to our readers?

Not to spoil, but to take this opportunity on the fly, which offers us the opportunity to return to the essential, to find out what is really important for us. To look in the face what our priorities, our fears can be, to welcome them and take care of it. To ask us: what am I called to do? What really is God's project for me?
But above all to trust us, our intuitions, to be open to the new and the different, which perhaps can frighten, but which allows us to go further, to meet, to know. to rely On god who Loves us to go crazy and who made us as wonders, to be happy and to really realize our dreams, chasing them and finding concrete ways to make them possible here and now, now, to make them.
It is certainly not always easy, and we will be able to meet obstacles, but the important thing is to believe and continue to act as far as possible, as is it possible, also welcoming all our fragility.
God did not want us invincible and perfect, because otherwise it would not have created us like this; On the contrary, he loves our being fragile and imperfect madly, but always on the way! It is doing everything the possible one then finds ourselves impossible ... that God tears you all !!!

You don't have to be special to make a difference, Don Andrea seems to tell us. Listening and love make miracles. It is enough to have eyes open and a little goodwill, as can be stated in the Eucharistic prayer "Lord, give us eyes to see the needs and suffering of the brothers ...". There are those who make a life program because, believing or not, we are all human beings.