Transgender Women Pray for Pope Francis’ Recovery 

A group of transgender women in Italy who were befriended by Pope Francis during the COVID-19 pandemic, have been praying for his health as they recall his support of the transgender community over the years.

Moira Camila Garnica, one of the transgender women praying for the pope.

The women gather each night at Blessed Immaculate Virgin Church, in the seaside town of Torvaianica, a suburb of Rome, to pray together for the pope who has shown them great kindness since 2020.  The church has been a haven for the women, most of whom are sex workers, giving them food, medicine and money during a time where they could not work. The parish priest encouraged the group to write letters to Pope Francis, which they did, and he responded.  

The Pope received their messages and provided them with money, vaccines, and a special invitation to a luncheon he hosted for the poor.  

One of the women, Carla Segovia, who turned to sex work to pay for her gender affirming surgeries, grew up Catholic but was shunned once she came out as trans. She explained why praying for the pontiff is important to them:

“In this Covid period, it was important that Pope Francis got inside the mind of transgender women, in the mind of the human beings that we are, and started to treat us like human beings, and that I think is the moment when faith or Christianity could embrace us.”

She said the women want to “transmit to him our strength, the same thing that he brought to us in the difficult time of the pandemic. We want to inoculate him with this strength that is so crucial – the fact that you need to fight for your life.”

Rev. Andrea Conocchia, the pastor at the Blessed Immaculate Virgin Church, states that helping these women aligns with the church’s teachings to reach out to the marginalized.. He hopes that the Vatican’s support of these women will help to “abolish prejudices that religious people hold.”  He continued:

“We put the poor back at the center, we put people back at the center, and that’s the Gospel. What matters to me is a person, a person’s life and their story … a person is never what they do.”

Regina Tana outside Gemelli Hospital

Separate from this group of women, Regina Tana, a transgender woman, was featured in another news article describing her pilgrimage  to Gemelli Hospital, where the pope has been recuperating,  to pray for his “very sad and delicate” situation. 

Standing outside the building, she held a sign thanking Pope Francis for supporting LGBTQ+ Catholics, specifically by including a September 2025 LGBTQ+  prayer events for the Jubilee Year on the Vatican’s list of upcoming jubilee events. The Italian LGBTQ+ Catholic organization”La Tenda di Gionata” is organizing the events to welcome LGBTQ+ people into the Church. For Tana, Pope Francis’ gesture is a “a beautiful opening.”

“My faith is not shaken,” she said. . . . “[E]ven if a part of the Church does not accept us, another part, perhaps, is opening up to this reality.”  

—Sarah Cassidy, New Ways Ministry, March 11, 2025