Luana Ricci, who changed her name from Marco Della Gatta last year and is awaiting an operation to complete her sex change, said she was fired Aug. 31 with no explanation from the cathedral, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Thursday.
"They gave me the boot without any explanation, beating about the bush without coming out with the real reason," Ricci said.
Ricci, who married and had two children, ages 15 and 18, during her life as a man, said her family supports her.
"Both they and my wife love me for what I am," she said of her children. "I never would have thought that my condition would have caused problems in the workplace."
A spokesman for the cathedral said officials hope "dialogue can clear up the various aspects of this complex matter."
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
Roman Catholic Church has bad track record with trans liturgists
In mid-August 1999, after fifteen years as a cantor and liturgist, I was asked to leave the parish by Holy Name of Jesus (Valhalla, New York) parish associate pastor Rev. David Clifford. A couple of gay friends were banned from their parish church in the Bronx after they got married in Canada - they had served in the choir for decades, and everyone knew they were gay.
The reason given to and to my gay friends, was that *we* were "creating a scandal in the Church." In my case, by starting transition, and in their case by getting married.
Similarly, Dan Schutte, formerly one of the St. Louis Jesuits, was disinvited from a Catholic Church-run liturgy conference in Washington DC in the late 1990's after he had the temerity to marry - again, the "causing a scandal in the Church" rationale was used.
Sadly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued several doctrinal letters against homosexuality and marriage equality in secular law, and one unfortunately erroneous "sub secretum" directive to Apostolic Nuncios and bishops relating to transgender people.
I express my deep sympathy for Luana Ricci. I continue to pray that the Church hierarchy receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit to come to the realization that Isaiah 56, Matthew 19:12 and Acts 8 speak directly to the fact that God loves transsexual and transgender people as well as strangers and oters who are different. We are God's People as well as anyone else - and I pray that they repent before their Day of Judgment, since I fear they will be numbered among the Goats (see MAtthew 25) if they persist in continuing to marginalize and abuse transgender and transsexual people.
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