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A transgender man from Spain, described by a priest as the devil’s daughter, has had a private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican.
According to reports in a Spanish newspaper, Diego Neria Lejarraga and his fiancé met Pope Francis at the Pope’s residence on January 24.
Mr Neria, 48, wrote to Pope Francis last year, saying that he felt like an outcast from the Church, after he had undergone gender reassignment surgery.
Fellow parishioners at his church in Plasencia had advised him not to take Communion.
So Mr Neria turned to Pope Francis.
“After hearing him on many occasions, I felt that he would listen to me,” Mr Neria said.
He was amazed when Pope Francis called him twice late last year to arrange a meeting.
The Pope reportedly told Mr Neria he had been struck by his story.
After the private audience at the Vatican, Mr Neria said: “The meeting was a wonderful, intimate, unique experience that changed my life.”
“Now I am in finally in peace.”
The Vatican has refused to confirm or deny the meeting, saying it is not Vatican policy to comment on the Pope’s personal phone calls or appointments.
Mr Neria was born a woman.
But at the age of 40, after years of living in “a body that felt like a prison that absolutely didn’t correspond with what my soul felt”, he decided to begin the transition and undergo a sex change, which was completed eight months ago.
He said he had agreed not to start the gender reassignment until after the death of his mother.
He started the process when he turned 40, a year after his mother died.
An article in The Telegraph in London described the encounter between the Pope and Mr Neria as “an important gesture of acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Catholics”.
According to The Tablet, there is no official Church teaching on transgender issues, but the Catechism forbids amputations, mutilations and sterilisations, except for “strictly therapeutic medical reasons”.
Pope Benedict XVI said people should not reject the gender “ordained by God” for them, the Tablet stated.
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