When I rejected my son because he's gay

Testimony of Mara Grassi held in the online prayer of Week of prayer for the victims of homophobia and transphobia dated May 13, 2021

A “gay” son, “homosexual”, words I couldn't even pronounce. 16 years have passed since, one evening in December, I entered his room and asked him. Some signs had thrown me into an anxiety that was destroying me. I was petrified and could only tell him: "No, no, Giovanni, you're not gay, you'll see that it's just a moment, we'll go to the best psychologists, we'll cure you, you'll see that it will pass".

And we went to the psychologists, him alone, all of us as a family, but he was not "cured". And realizing this, I started to cry, I always cried, even if I tried not to let him see it, until one day he told me: "Mom, I can't see the suffering on your face anymore, I'm leaving home."

He was already grown up, he had graduated, he was working, I certainly couldn't stop him. They were very hard months, we heard from him very little, then he started to get ill, first his stomach, then two hospital admissions, then he called us and from there we re-established our relationship, even if his homosexuality remained a secret in the family which I rejected. .

But why couldn't I accept it? Because I deeply believed that he was outside of God's plan and that living his sexuality, in the second hospitalization we had met his partner, was a sin, it was "intrinsically disordered” as I knew well from the Catechism.

Since adolescence I had approached the Church, despite coming from a non-believing family, and I had lived with great commitment a life of faith that tried to respect the norms of the Church in everything.

Led by a very charismatic parish priest, we had made purity and chastity our strong point above all. We wanted to be “holy families” and we created an environment in which children could respond to their vocation either in marriage or in self-consecration. My son, so brilliant, for whom I had so much hope, couldn't be so wrong.

Above all it was the Magisterium that could not be wrong, it was out of my mind to be able to question it in the slightest. This is why I was also in the square in Rome for Family day. Instead I argued with him when he came to lunch and he was increasingly angry at these positions of mine and even more so since he felt despised in a confession and had completely distanced himself from the Church.

The news of his homosexuality began to spread in the parish and in the town. Two of his sisters also left home and perhaps one of the reasons was the failure to address this stigma. In a short time everything had collapsed for me, we were left with only the youngest. Giovanni's lifelong friends had turned their backs on him, everyone knew but no one spoke about him anymore, as if he wasn't there.

But I couldn't do it because he was and is my son and my love for him was stronger than any conviction or prejudice. He forced me to ask myself questions, to awaken my conscience, to study, to compare his life with what was written in the catechism and to pray more and more to understand what my path was, certainly not the so straight and sure one that I had followed up until now. At that time.

I was no longer the "good" one who followed a path of perfection so as to deserve God's love. Indeed, God had loved me by giving me my children as they were, with their different ability to love.

I understood this clearly on the evening of the vigil (for the victims of homophobia in Parma) in 2017: «All are children of God, just as they are» and as he later confirmed to me Pope Francis on September 16th last. Since then, especially with the help of the group (of LGBT Christians and their parents) of Reggio Emilia and the Davide Group (of Catholic parents with LGBT children from Parma) I too began to say it, more and more loudly, to everyone.

WATCH TEXT> Vigil for victims of homotransphobia on May 13, 2021 (Pdf)