January 13, 1998 Alfredo Ormando, a thirty-nine-year-old Sicilian, native of San Cataldo (Caltanissetta), a homosexual with aspirations and ambitions to be a writer, burned himself alive in St. Peter's in Rome, dousing himself in gasoline and setting himself on fire with a lighter.

Alfredo Ormando

Rescued by a policeman, who tried to put out the flames with his uniform jacket, Ormando died in hospital after 9 days of agony.

His is not the act of a madman; on the contrary, it is a lucid, conscious, calculated gesture, prepared down to the smallest detail. It is an unprecedented act, never attempted before, of extreme protest against the Vatican.

What we propose here, therefore, is not an interpretation of the facts that actually occurred historically and are reported in the news pages of national newspapers.
It is a stark and raw exposure of the existential drama of an "irregular"“, a drama that flared up in all its virulence because of an existence lived in the daily hell of burning marginalization.

From the curse, from the damnation of this marginalization, from the heart of a boundless solitude, come to us the last and desperate letters of Alfredo Ormando, intended by the author for posterity, and of which, for the first time, we publish excerpts with a rather touching and painful tone.

In publishing the excerpts selected from these letters, we have deliberately omitted all the names of Ormando's friends, lovers, and relatives, not only for reasons of privacy and caution on our part, but for a fundamental reason.

In fact, it is not a question here of putting this or that person or more people in a good or bad light, but of focusing all our attention on the drama of a life wasted due to repression and anti-gay prejudice in a social context, such as that of the deep south, very backward, obtuse and provincial.

On this point we want to be clear to avoid any misunderstandings, misinterpretations, or exploitations.
Blaming anyone in particular for Ormando's suicide does not help the cause for which he sacrificed himself.

Moreover, if you read these letters carefully, you realize that they were not dictated by hatred or resentment towards anyone.

If one believed otherwise, it would be more difficult to fully understand the meaning of Ormando's “black,” mournful pilgrimage to Rome.
The meaning of this pilgrimage and of the "final gesture" made by Ormando in St. Peter's is so clear that it does not need to be supported by explanations other than those provided by the author of these letters.

And yet if we are to believe these letters, we cannot consider Ormando a saint, a hero, or a madman.
By becoming a human torch, a Paschal candle in the Vatican, we believe that Ormando not only wanted to shed light on the darkness of the obscurantism of a homophobic and medieval Catholic morality, but also on the greyness of his life as an outcast, on the drama of an unbearable human story, dripping with tears and blood.

Ormando's lesson is not that of a kamikaze or a martyr, on the contrary it is a human lesson, all too human. The lesson of those who, choosing to die, no longer want to be stoned and wounded daily for their homosexuality; the lesson of those who, at the stake, want to, with the fuel of their bodies, shed light on the submerged suffering of themselves and others caused by the Church's sex-phobic mentality and morality.

Of course, the risk of this lesson is to transform Ormando into a bad teacher, that is, into a model to imitate.

To avoid this gross error, we publish these excerpts from his last letters, since what speaks clearly in these lines is not madness, vainglory, the vocation to martyrdom, to sainthood, but rather the dramatic irreconcilability of the world of a homosexual with the so-called normal one.

From the last letters of Alfredo Ormando

Edited by Piero Montana

Palermo, November 11, 1997

Dearest (friend),
I am writing another letter for the use and consumption of posterity...(1)
I've decided to end my life; every illusion of redeeming myself through my writing has collapsed. I'm tired of feeling isolated, marginalized. What's the point of living when you're not loved and respected? I have a mother's love, and that of "Y" is true, but that doesn't cover the ostracism of people, even family members. It's too much; I can no longer find a valid reason to give meaning to my life, even a tenuous, banal hold... I feel like a plague victim, a leper with bells tied to his feet to warn people to stay away from me.
I wonder if a man who is already dead can be considered a suicide… Why do I have to live?
I can't find a single reason why I should continue this torture...
I'm thinking of spending Christmas in Palermo with my mother and "Y", and in January going to Rome and setting myself on fire in St. Peter's Square... but will I still be of this opinion?
And yet there are less than two months left, I can finally begin to live, because to die is to live...
Those few minutes of suffering will be repaid with the cessation of all sorrows, all disagreements. In the afterlife, I will make no one's hair stand on end or their nose wrinkle because I'm gay. I don't understand why people are so keen to remind me that I'm gay. I know I'm gay and I have a good memory and a good understanding of myself. Why then do they keep telling me over and over again that I'm a faggot?
I don't understand this animosity against me. I don't divert anyone from the straight path of heterosexuality. Anyone who sleeps with me is mature, adult, consenting, and homosexual or bisexual.
I really want to end it all: I hope I can finally do it as soon as possible.

Palermo, November 27, 1997

Dearest (friend),
This time I'm serious. If before I found many reasons to live, now I find just as many to stop. I've reached the end of the line, my life cycle is coming to an end, I feel it inevitably.
I have now entered the tunnel of death where the only way out is St. Peter's Square...
I realize that suicide is a form of rebellion against God, but I can no longer live; in truth, I am already dead.
I can't wait to go to Rome and leave behind a life that for me has always been a condemnation.

Palermo, December 8, 1997

Dearest (friend),
Between Friday evening and Saturday afternoon I destroyed all the photos of myself, I destroyed the negatives and cut up the group photos, removing my image.
I don't even have a photo left, just one of my driving license and my bus pass.
It's as if I never existed. Unfortunately, the memories remain archived in a dark corner of my brain, and I can't truly tear them apart and shred them like I did with the photos.
…I don't want this mendacious material to outlive me. Who would ever care to see my idiotic face?
Perhaps I wasn't humiliated enough in life to continue to be an object of ridicule even in death?
Under the pretext of sorting out "Y's" photos, I also destroyed his, saving the ones showing him alone and deleting the ones showing us both.
«Y» cried a lot about this and it gave me a lot of pain, but I am carrying out a plan that he does not know.

Palermo, Christmas 1997

Dear (friend),
This year, I no longer feel Christmas; it's indifferent to me like everything else; nothing can bring me back to life. My preparations for suicide are proceeding inexorably; I feel this is my destiny.
I've always known it and never accepted it, but this tragic fate is there, waiting for me with an incredible, painstaking patience. I haven't been able to escape this idea of death; I feel I can't avoid it, much less pretend to live and progress toward a future I won't have: my future will be nothing more than the continuation of my present. I live with the knowledge of someone who is about to leave this earthly life, and that doesn't horrify me—quite the opposite! I can't wait to end my days; they'll think I'm crazy for choosing St. Peter's Square to set myself on fire when I could have done it in Palermo. I hope they'll understand the message I want to convey: it's a form of protest against the Church, which demonizes homosexuality while simultaneously demonizing Nature, because homosexuality is its offspring.

Palermo, January 2, 1998

Dear (friend),
A new year has begun but it's not for me, within the month I will have already put my dire resolution into action.
… Last Wednesday was a beautiful day for me, the preparations for New Year's Eve dinner had given me a great zest for life, but it only lasted a day and that was it, after which the funereal thoughts returned to keep me company.
...Sometimes it takes very little to be happy and just as little to be unhappy. For me, it's a different story. I've lived with prejudice and marginalization since I was ten years old. I can't accept it anymore; I've had enough.
…I will be punished in the afterlife for my actions. I hope for God's understanding and justice. I am ready to pay the consequences. After all, I am accustomed and trained to suffering.
If I had a couple of friends like you here, I would have gladly accepted my life.

Palermo, January 4, 1998

Dear (friend),
I can't wait to get on the road to finish it all in St. Peter's Square...
The pain of feeling burned alive no longer scares me.
I'll suffer for a few minutes, then the endorphins will help me bear the pain.
Compared to my life, it's far preferable, at least it will only last a few minutes.
It's stupid of me to persist in repeating the same things over and over again. I've said it all. You know why I came to this conclusion.

FOR POSTERITY

I apologize to the entire world for my heinous crimes against that nature so dear and desecrated by Christianity.
I apologize for coming into this world, for polluting the air you breathe with my poisonous breath, for daring to think and act like a man, for refusing to accept a difference I didn't feel, for considering homosexuality a natural sexuality, for feeling equal to heterosexuals and second to none, for aspiring to become a writer, for dreaming, for laughing, for killing my mother and another dear person with the bloody suppression of my useless existence.
The monster goes away so as not to disturb or offend you any longer, so as not to make you blush and embarrass and ashamed with his ignoble presence, so as not to disgust you and turn away when you meet him on the street.
Don't allow me to have an unmourned grave, to become a plague victim even in death. If gasoline hasn't done its job, reducing me to ashes, cremate me and scatter my ashes in the Roman countryside. I'd like to be useful at least as fertilizer. I make a heartfelt appeal for your understanding and generosity.
I have lived such a hellish life that the Christian life, in comparison, seems like a fairy tale to put children to sleep.
My only outlet was my writing. I wanted to redeem myself through fiction, but the publishing industry wouldn't let me, and besides, who would ever report a faggot?
I could no longer deceive my biological desire to live, to come to terms with my marginalization, my boundless solitude.

Alfredo Ormando

NOTE

1) Alfredo Ormando's last autographed letters, dated November 11, 1997, November 27, 1997, December 8, 1997, Christmas 1997, January 2, 1998, and January 4, 1998, dedicated to a friend from Reggio Emilia who wishes to remain anonymous, will never be sent for understandable reasons of caution on the part of the author, who did not want to be stopped in his suicidal intention.
They will remain in the drawer as they were written for posterity.
By Ormando's express wish, we have therefore collected, even if only in part, this legacy to make known, through the fragmentary publication of excerpts selected from these letters, the written and declared reasons for such a shocking suicide.
The letter dated Christmas '97 and the one for posterity, sent a few days before the suicide to the Ansa news agency in Rome, are presented here in their entirety, the first because it is already known, having been published elsewhere in its entirety, the second because it was sent by Ormando himself so that its contents would be known.