Spanish periodical Hoy reveals the private meeting in the Vatican of "Diego" Neria Lejárraga, a woman from Plasencia, Spain, and her "wife"["fiancée", see second Update.]
Excerpts:
The Blessed Encounter between Francis and Diego
The Pope welcomed Saturday in the Vatican a Plasencia native who has felt outside the Church since he [sic] was submitted to a gender-reassignment surgery
...
"I would have never dared before, but with Pope Francis, yes; after hearing him in so many interventions, I felt that he would listen to me." Diego Neria Lejárraga is a 48-yearold native of Plasencia [Western Spain], who was received on Saturday [January 24] by Pope Francis in a meeting that was strictly private - as so many of the Holy Father - in his residency of Santa Marta, in the Vatican, at 5 p.m. An exceptional moment for any believer, for thousands of citizens around the world, and unique in the life of Diego. Because now his spirit is in peace....Since the person who he loved most in the world, his mother, "the soul of my life", asked him not to change his body while she lived. "And I would wait a thousand and one lives for her." He took care of her during the last years of his life, and, one year after her death, when Diego turned 40, he finally took the step: he contacted a plastic surgeon and started changing his body. ...
Diego asked the Holy Father if, such as he is today, following his gender-reassignment, there is any place in the house of God for him. And Pope Francis yesterday [Saturday] embraced him in the Vatican. In the presence of his wife [sic], with whom he will form a family soon.
Today his spirit is in peace....
[Hoy, in Spanish. Tip: reader. ]
[Update: information confirmed in Italian reports in Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, Il Giornale, etc.]
[Jan. 27: Second update: the Italian Bishops' Conference paper, Avvenire, confirms the private meeting today, calling the second woman Diego's "fiancée" - they are still engaged to be "married".]
