I am a lesbian and Christian, after the wake of Bari I feel at home in my church

Testimony of Francesca di Bari

"I am Marco, a boy, I am a Christian, I am university but I am also homosexual".

Thus began one of the testimonies that most struck me of an evening that I would never have thought of being able to live, a prayer vigil for the victims of homobitransphobia in the church. Yes yes, you got it right, in church, and to be precise, in the parish of San Sabino, in Bari.

"There are many forms of violence - explains Marco - There is not only the physical one. There is also another, more subtle, thinner, who does not break your bones, does not make you bleed, that is hidden and hides in the form of good advice. It is a violence that does not let you live, but simply survive. It is that form of violence for which they make you believe that that piece of your life, that feature is not so important, is part of you ok, but it is better not to give it to see"."

As we could choose, with a magic wand, to cancel, obscure a part of ourselves, that we try to hide the more, the more he bursts with the same strength as a child to come to light.

And so, it happens that the other pieces of the puzzle of ourselves also break down, the whole crumbles, giving that silent violence the permission to wear and trigger a vicious circle, because violence generates other violence, primarily towards ourselves and then towards others.

"When I met the Zacchaeus group Instead, I learned and accepted that I am Marco, who I am a boy, who I am a Christian, who I am university but I am also homosexual, and that this part is important. When this part of me also started breathing, everything else started to do it and bring fruit”.

The story of Marco is the story of many LGBT+boys, forced for years to have to choose between those who really were and those who had to be, between love and faith, as if they were two mutually exclusive loves.

From an early age they made us believe, and they told us only a possible form of love, that between a man and a woman, between a mother and a dad.

Then they also told us that the Lord created us in his image and likeness, and then because God made me homo/bi/transsexual, if I cannot love who my heart chooses, if I can't be part of the Church family, if I can't be who really am?

Every young homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual has asked itself at least once this question; And then a verse of Genesis came to mind when we talk about the creation of the world and man: "male and female created them " , not necessarily heterosexual.

On the basis of this consideration, I also started making peace with myself and with whom my heart chose, aware that the Lord loved me and would have loved me as I was, in the best version he could create: if he had considered more right to create me in another way, would he have already done it, right? So who I was, or all the contemptuous judgments that I listened to my nature, to judge the work of God?

However, up to the evening of May 14, 2023, all these questions that I had given me silent and personal answers, they finally had a cry aloud, and the confirmation of justice.

For the first time I crossed the doors of that house, without having more the feeling of having to sit among the last benches, and having to leave one of the most precious and most illuminating parts of my life. Because love was the care for wounds that hatred and ignorant, cruel and superficial prejudice had dug in my heart, made me the person I am proud of today, allowed me to spend for others, and to follow with joy the example that he left us in custody.

Love mixes us and transforms us into the best, more tender, sweeter version, more understanding than ourselves: he does not ask us for anything more than this, and this is why we have the right and duty to sweeten the hardest hearts, to illuminate the darkest minds by prejudices, from the anger inculcated by ignorance, and above all, to be able to look at the mirror and recognize us as loved, and not in half.

We owe it to all the victims of violence represented by that empty chair at the foot of the altar who, just like Jesus, were judged, humiliated, beatings, killed by words thrown like bullets against ears still too fragile, or by hands, kicks, punches.

We owe it to the children of two mothers and two dads, today and tomorrow, whose dignity and recognition are increasingly mined, not only on a legal level, so that they can find arms to welcome them among the desks and dreamy faces in the face of their tales of love, family, understanding. The church is everyone's house, white, black, mulatto, heterosexual, homosexuals, transgender, high, low, shy and sociable, believers and not.

I am Francesca, I am a girl, I am a Christian, I am a doctor, I am in love and I am also homosexual.

>Info on vigils for overcoming homotransphobia in Italy, Spain, France, Holland, Malta and Poland