'Darkest period of my life': Gay conversion therapy in Italy
Rosario Lonegro was only 20 years old when he entered a Catholic seminary in Sicily as an aspiring priest preparing to be ordained. But while he was there he fell in love with another man and his superiors demanded that he undergo conversion therapy intended to erase his sexual preferences if he wanted to continue on the path to the priesthood.
For more than a year, he was compelled to take part in spiritual gatherings outside the seminary, some over several days, where he was subjected to a series of distressing activities intended to strip him of his sexual proclivities.
These included being locked in a dark closet, being coerced to strip naked in front of fellow participants, and even being required to enact his own funeral.
During these rituals, he was tasked with committing to paper his perceived flaws, such as “homosexuality”, “abomination”, “falsehood” - and even more explicit terms, which he was then obliged to bury beneath a symbolic gravestone.
The Italian priest who originally pushed Lonegro into these practices was given a senior position within the Church.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2995x14r85o
Rosario Lonegro was only 20 years old when he entered a Catholic seminary in Sicily as an aspiring priest preparing to be ordained. But while he was there he fell in love with another man and his superiors demanded that he undergo conversion therapy intended to erase his sexual preferences if he wanted to continue on the path to the priesthood.
For more than a year, he was compelled to take part in spiritual gatherings outside the seminary, some over several days, where he was subjected to a series of distressing activities intended to strip him of his sexual proclivities.
These included being locked in a dark closet, being coerced to strip naked in front of fellow participants, and even being required to enact his own funeral.
During these rituals, he was tasked with committing to paper his perceived flaws, such as “homosexuality”, “abomination”, “falsehood” - and even more explicit terms, which he was then obliged to bury beneath a symbolic gravestone.
The Italian priest who originally pushed Lonegro into these practices was given a senior position within the Church.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2995x14r85o
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
