Gay conversion therapy: “It was the darkest period of my life”

Rosario Lonegro was barely 20 years old when he entered a Catholic seminary in Sicily as an aspiring priest, with the intention of being ordained.

But while there she fell in love with another man and her superiors required her to undergo conversion therapy aimed at erasing her sexual preferences if her goal was to follow the path to the priesthood.

“It was the darkest period of my life,” Rosario told the BBC, recalling her experience at the seminar in 2017.

Plagued by guilt and fear of committing a sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church, Rosario says he felt “trapped with no choice but to repress my true self.”

“The psychological pressure to be someone other than myself was insurmountable. I couldn’t change no matter how hard I tried.”

For more than a year, he forced to participate in spiritual meetings outside the seminar, some over several days, where he had to carry out a series of distressing activities aimed at eradicating his sexual preferences.

For example, it locked in a closet dark, forced to undress in front of his classmates and even asked him to would represent his own funeral.

During these rituals, he was tasked with putting down on paper what were perceived to be his flaws, such as “homosexuality”, “abomination”, “falsehood”, and even more explicit terms, which he would then be forced to bury under a tombstone. symbolic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1990. Subsequent scientific research largely concluded that Attempts to change sexual orientation are not only ineffective, but also harmful.

Conversion therapies have been officially banned in France, Germany and predominantly Catholic Spain, and attempts are being made in both England and Wales to make them illegal.

Today, in Italy it is almost impossible to determine the exact extent of these practices, denounced mainly by men, but also by some women, and there is no standard legal definition from the same.

However, in recent months, the BBC interviewed several young gay men from across the country who shared their experiences of pseudoscientific group meetings or individual therapy sessions they have been forced to attend, with the aim of turning them heterosexual.

A 33-year-old man who attended such meetings for more than two years expressed his initial motivation by saying: “I wanted to reconcile with myself. I didn’t want to be gay. I thought I needed to heal.”

“I saw it as my only path to acceptance,” said another. He was not trying to become a priest, but rather he was simply seeking acceptance in his everyday life.

Gay conversion therapy is not limited to a specific region of Italy: there are group meetings and individual therapy sessions throughout the country, some even led by licensed psychotherapists.

In some cases, these meetings and therapy sessions are off-the-record and covert, often promoted through discreet conversations and secret referrals.

Other courses are advertised publicly, and well-known figures in Italian conservative circles actively seek followers on the internet and social media platforms to publicize their ability to change sexual orientation.

In Sicily, Rosario Lonegro had to participate mainly in the meetings organized by the Spanish group Truth and Freedom, under the direction of Miguel Ángel Sánchez Cordón. This group dissolved after receiving disapproval from the Catholic Church.

However, the Italian priest who originally led Lonegro to these practices was given a high position within the Church, while others continued to be inspired by Sánchez Cordón’s methods in Italy.

Many of the people the BBC spoke to referred to Luca di Tolve, a “moral/spiritual coach” who gained recognition thanks to his book titled “I Was Gay Once. In Medjugorie I Found Myself.”

On their website, Di Tolve and his wife boast of being a “satisfied couple” who seek to “support anyone whose sexual identity is in crisis, to help them truly exercise their freedom to determine who they want to be as a person.” When the BBC contacted Di Tolve, he did not respond.

Another active person promoting ways to address perceived sexual orientation is Giorgio Ponte, a well-known writer in the Italian ultra-conservative circles. Ponte says he wants to help people overcome their homosexuality and break free, telling his own story as a man with homosexual impulses who is on his “potentially lifelong” path to freedom.

“In my experience, homosexual attraction arises from a wound in one’s own identity that hides needs not related to the erotic-sexual aspect, but rather linked to a distorted perception of oneself, which is reflected in all aspects of life. “he told the BBC.

“I believe that a homosexual person should have the freedom to try [convertirse en heterosexual]if you want, knowing, however, that it may not be possible for everyone,” he added.

In recent years, dozens of young men and women have sought guidance from people like Di Tolve, Ponte and Sánchez Cordón. Among them Massimiliano Felicetti, a 36-year-old gay man, who fought against attempts to change his sexual orientation for more than 15 years.

“I began to feel uncomfortable with myself from a very young age, I felt that I would never be accepted by my family, society, ecclesiastical circles. I thought I was wrong, I just wanted to be lovedand these people offered me hope,” he says.

Felicetti said he had tried different solutions, consulting psychologists and members of the clergy who offered to help him become heterosexual. However, about two years ago, he decided to quit. A friar who knew of his struggle encouraged him to start dating a woman, but it didn’t work out.

“When I kissed her for the first time, it didn’t feel natural to me. It was time to stop pretending,” Felicetti says.

Just a few months ago he came out as gay to his family. “It has taken me years, but for the first time I feel happy to be who I am.”

Despite attempts by previous governments to promote a bill to oppose conversion therapies, no progress has been made in Italy. The Italian right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni has so far adopted a hostile stance towards LGBT rightsand the prime minister herself has promised to confront the so-called “LGBT lobby” and “gender ideology.”

This lack of progress does not surprise Michele Di Bari, a comparative public law researcher at the University of Padua, who states that Italy is structurally much slower when it comes to applying changes compared to other Western European countries.

“This is a very elusive phenomenon, given that it is a practice prohibited by the Italian order of psychologists itself. However, in the Italian legal system it is not considered illegal. “People who carry out these practices cannot be punished.”

Despite the complexity of the issue, experts believe that, in part because of Italy’s strong Catholic influence, the country has been more reluctant to ban these controversial practices.

“This may be one of the elements that, together with a strongly patriarchal and sexist culture, hinders the broader understanding of homosexuality and LGBT rights,” says Valentina Gentile, a sociologist at LUISS University in Rome.

“However, It is also fair to say that not all Catholicism is hostile to the inclusion of diversity and that the Church itself is in a period of strong transformation in this sense,” he adds.

He Pope Francisco He said that the Catholic Church is open to everyone, including the gay community, and that it has the duty to accompany them on a personal path of spirituality, but within the framework of its rules.

However, the Pope himself used a very derogatory term towards the LGBT community when he said in a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops that Homosexuals should not be allowed to be priests. The Vatican issued a official apology.

Rosario Lonegro has left Sicily behind and now lives in Milan. After a nervous breakdown in 2018, she left both the seminary and the conversion therapy group.

Although he continues to believe in God, he no longer wants to be a priest. He shares an apartment with his boyfriend, studies philosophy and occasionally does freelance work to pay for college.

However, The psychological wounds inflicted by such activities remain deep.

“During those meetings, a mantra haunted me and was repeated over and over again: ‘God didn’t make me like this. God didn’t make me gay. It’s just a lie I tell myself,’ I believed myself to be evil,” he said.

This article was written and edited by our journalists with the help of an artificial intelligence tool for translation, as part of a pilot program

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