Pope Francis used a highly derogatory term towards the LGBT community as he reiterated in a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops that gay people should not be allowed to become priests, Italian media reported on Monday.
Italy’s largest circulation dailies, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera,
both quoted the pope as saying seminaries, or priesthood colleges, are already too full of “frociaggine,” a vulgar Italian term roughly translating as “faggotness.”
La Repubblica attributed its story to several unspecified sources, while Corriere reported that it was corroborated by a few unnamed bishops. These bishops suggested that the pope, as an Argentine, might not have realised that the Italian term he used was offensive. The political gossip website Dagospia was the first to report on the alleged incident, said to have occurred on May 20, during the opening of a four-day assembly of the Italian Bishops Conference in a private meeting with the pontiff.
Pope Francis, who is 87, has been credited with encouraging the Roman Catholic Church into taking a more welcoming approach towards the LGBT community. In 2013, at the start of his papacy, he famously said, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”, while last year he allowed priests to give blessings to members of same-sex couples, triggering backlash.
He also delivered a similar message on gay seminarians—minus the reported swear word—when he met Italian bishops in 2018, telling them to carefully vet priesthood applicants and reject any suspected homosexuals.
In a document released under Francis’s late predecessor Benedict XVI, in 2005, the Vatican said the Church could admit into the priesthood people who had clearly overcome homosexual tendencies for at least three years. The document said practicing homosexuals and those with “deep-seated” gay tendencies and those who “support the so-called gay culture” should be barred.
Melissa Enoch
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