‘Robin Hood’ cardinal gave funds to transgender sex workers in need during coronavirus

A cardinal who runs the Vatican’s charities sent aid to a group of transgender sex workers who were left stranded near Rome during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown in Italy, Reuters reports.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, known as “the Pope’s Robin Hood” wired money to the group from the Vatican charities after the group reached out to a local Catholic priest for help buying food.

“I don’t understand why this is getting so much attention,” Krajewski told Reuters. “This is ordinary work for the Church, it’s normal. This is how the Church is a field hospital.”

According to Reuters, the workers were likely undocumented and struggling to get aid from the government during the coronavirus crisis.

Krajewski said they had their passports taken away by “mafia pimps who control them,” and were out of work without a way to buy food or essentials as businesses were closed.

“Everything is closed. They don’t have any resources. They went to the pastor. They could not have gone to a politician or a parliamentarian. And the pastor came to us,” he said.

Krajewski told Reuters it is what Jesus would have done. 

According to the outlet, last year he restored electricity to hundreds of homeless people living in a deserted building in Rome by climbing down a manhole, breaking a police seal, and reconnecting circuit breakers.

Krajewski is one of the youngest cardinals in the world at 54 years old, and has helped establish shelters that provide homeless people near the Vatican with medical care and the opportunity to shower and groom. 

Italy has been one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus. The country has more than 270,000 confirmed cases and 28,236 deaths from the virus as of Friday evening. Some businesses have started reopening, but the overall lockdown is in place until at least May 3.