According to a Colombian transgender woman, the Holy Father opened the doors of the church to them.
Pope Francis' recent gesture of welcoming transgender Catholics has resonated with transgender women in the coastal city south of Rome.
Thanks to the local parish priest, the members of this community now visit the Pope's Wednesday general audiences every month, where they are given VIP seats, AP News .
The newspaper also reminded that when the coronavirus epidemic was raging, the Vatican transported them by bus to its health facility so that they could receive the vaccine as soon as possible.
On Sunday, these transgender women – many of whom are migrants from Latin America and work as prostitutes – joined more than a thousand poor and homeless people in the Vatican auditorium as guests of the head of the Catholic Church at a lunch held on the occasion of the World Day of the Poor.
"The doors of the church have been opened to us"
In an AP News report, he said that for the marginalized trans community, this was just the latest gesture of inclusion from a pope who made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, both in words and deeds.
"Before, the church was closed to us. They didn't see us as normal people, they saw us as the devil," said Andrea Paola Torres Lopez, a Colombian transgender woman known as Consuelo, whose kitchen is decorated with pictures of Jesus.
Then Pope Francis arrived and the doors of the church opened for us"
he underlined.
The newspaper recalled one of the pope's recent statements, in which the head of the church himself indicated that same-sex couples can also receive a church blessing.
Featured Image: MASSIMO VALICCHIA / NURPHOTO / NURPHOTO VIA AFP
