Since April, at the invitation of the Vatican, Conocchia has brought four groups of LGBTQ people to meet Pope Francis and receive needed medical care.
The Rev. Andrea Conocchia, the pastor, showed up in sweatpants and a T-shirt reading “God is great and Jesus loves me,” a gift for his 25th anniversary of celebrating his first Mass. He apologized for his voice, still worn out from guiding the Mary procession down the town’s windy beach.
In the past two years, Conocchia has gained fame for serving a particular community that found him shortly after he arrived at Blessed Virgin: a group of trans women, whose lives he has changed both practically and spiritually. The trans women in Torvaianica sought out Conocchia for basic needs. Most of them sex workers, they had been left without clients, and therefore income, by the coronavirus pandemic. Because many are HIV-positive, they are at higher risk for serious illness. As immigrants, they could not take advantage of Italy’s health-care system.