Pope Francis allegedly told a closed-door meeting of Italian bishops not to allow gay men to train for the priesthood, with two Italian newspapers reporting that the Pope used Italian slang for homosexuals during the course of the conversation.
Citing sources who had attended the meeting, the Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica newspapers claimed that the 87-year-old Pontiff had said there is “frociaggine” – which translates in English to “faggotry” – in some of the seminaries.
Many received the Pope’s comments with surprise, as Francis has often been perceived by some as a liberal reformer when it comes to the Church’s stance on homosexuality.
So you know how Pope Francis is generally portrayed as a big cuddly liberal? He has just used perhaps the most offensive homophobic term in Italian (basically f*g**t) while calling on bishops not to accept any seminarians who are gay.https://t.co/pO9ArTzWpo pic.twitter.com/NuXWkNsyzF
— Marcus Walker (@WalkerMarcus) May 27, 2024
The comments took place in the context of proposals from Italian bishops to make changes to guidelines on candidates to seminaries.
In his comments to the bishops, Francis voiced what had been the Church’s official position since 2005, when the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education issued a document on the topic, approved by Pope Benedict XVI, which ruled that that the Church cannot allow the ordination of men who are actively gay or have “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies.
Pope Francis endorsed the same document three years into his pontificate in 2016.
The current Pope’s approach to the topic of homosexuality has frequently been perceived as more welcoming than that of previous pontiffs. When asked about gay people earlier in his papacy, Francis famously made headlines when he responded “Who am I to judge?” More recently, he signed off on Fiducia Supplicans, a document that opened up the possibility of blessings for same-sex couples.
The Corriere della Sera newspaper stated that Francis, who hails from Argentina but who speaks Italian as a second language, may not have been aware of the language being offensive.
However, Church commentator with Crux Now, John L. Allen Jr argued instead that it “strains credulity” that the Pope didn’t understand the language he was using.
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