ROME — A former Vatican official, who was stripped of his post early this month after acknowledging publicly that he was gay and in a relationship, on Wednesday renewed his criticism of the Roman Catholic church, accusing it of homophobia.

The official, the Rev. Krzysztof Charamsa, made public a letter that he had sent to Pope Francis, dated Oct. 3, in which he denounced the church, saying that it had made the lives of gay and transgender people “a hell.” He wrote that the church had persecuted gay Catholics and had caused them and their families “immeasurable suffering.”

“Be merciful — at least leave us in peace, let the civil states make our lives more humane,” Father Charamsa wrote in the letter.

Father Charamsa, 43, a Polish former official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has made such assertions before. This month, on the eve of the synod, the church’s assembly of bishops from around the world, he announced in the Italian and Polish news media, and then at a news conference in a restaurant in central Rome, that he was gay and had a partner.