Alfredo Ormando (15 December 1958 in San Cataldo – 23 January 1998 in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

) was a gay writer from Palermo who died as a result of setting himself on fire outside

Saint Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a Church (building), church built in the Renaissance architecture, Renaissanc ...

. His

self-immolation The term self-immolation broadly refers to acts of altruistic suicide, otherwise the giving up of one's body in an act of sacrifice. However, it most often refers specifically to autocremation, the act of sacrificing oneself by setting oneself ...

was an act of

protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...

against the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

teaching Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the context of an educational institution. Teaching is closely ...

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

. Ormando's only published book was the novel ''Il Fratacchione'' (''"The Overweight Monk"''), which recounted his two years at a monastery attempting to get closer to God and to purify himself of "unclean" desires. The narrator in the book states, "It isn't true that gay is beautiful. On the contrary, it is a continual death on the inside. Either you accept being gay, or you kill yourself." On 13 January 1998, Ormando set himself on fire in

St. Peter's Square Saint Peter's Square ( la, Forum Sancti Petri, it, Piazza San Pietro ,) is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave inside Rome, directly west of the neighborhood ( rione) of Borgo. B ...

close to where

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

was addressing the crowds. Two policemen tried to extinguish the flames, and he was taken to Sant'Eugenio Hospital with

third-degree burns A burn is an injury to skin, or other tissues, caused by heat, cold, electricity, chemicals, friction, or ultraviolet radiation (like sunburn). Most burns are due to heat from hot liquids (called scalding), solids, or fire. Burns occur mainl ...

over 90 percent of his body. He died 10 days later. Ormando was 39 years old. In a letter to a friend he wrote: "I hope they will understand the message I want to give - it is a form of protest against a Church that demonises homosexuality, demonising nature at the same time; despite the fact that homosexuality is a child of nature". , Ormando's actions are commemorated annually in St Peter's Square by

LGBT rights activists ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term i ...

. In 2014, the filmmaker Andy Abrahams Wilson, produced a 40-minute documentary film called '' Alfredo's Fire'' for the San Francisco-based Open Eye Pictures. Wilson argued that, "Fire was the perfect allegory for the experiences of LGBT people. Fire is at once a self-annihilation, and harkens back to the Middle Ages when homosexuals were burned at the stake". He said that church authorities downplayed the event, arguing that Ormando was psychologically disturbed, had family problems and had not been making a protest against the Church.

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''Alfredo's Fire'' is a documentary by Open Eye Pictures about Ormando's death

1958 births 1998 deaths People from San Cataldo, Sicily Suicides by self-immolation Italian gay writers Suicides in Vatican City LGBT and Catholicism Italian LGBT rights activists LGBT-related suicides Critics of the Catholic Church LGBT history in Italy 1998 suicides 20th-century LGBT people {{LGBT-bio-stub

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