VATICAN CITY.- Pope Francis has apologized after he was quoted as using a vulgar term to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s ban on gay priests.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a statement acknowledging the media storm that erupted around Francis’ comments, made behind closed doors with Italian bishops on May 20.
The press published that anonymous Italian bishops reported that Francis said in Italian that there is already too much “faggot” (frociaggine), to reaffirm the Vatican’s prohibition on allowing homosexual men to be seminarians and ordained priests.
Bruni said Francis is aware of the reports and recalled that the Argentine pope — who has made outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy — has long insisted that “there is room for everyone” in the Catholic Church.
“The pope has never wanted to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he addresses his apologies to those who have felt offended by the use of a term spread by others,” Bruni said.
Francis spoke before a conference of Italian bishops, who recently approved a new document outlining training for seminarians. The document, which has not been published and will be reviewed by the Holy See, allegedly seeks to poke a hole in the Vatican’s overall provision for gay priests.
The Vatican ban was articulated in a 2005 document from the Congregation for Catholic Education, and repeated in a later document in 2016, stating that the Church cannot admit to seminaries or ordain men who “practice the homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called homosexual culture”
Francis firmly ratified that stance in his May 20 meeting with the Italian bishops, jokingly saying that “there is already an air of faggot” in the seminaries, Italian media reported, following an initial report by the gossip site Dagospia.
Italian is not Francis’ native language, and the Argentine pope has made linguistic errors in the past, which have raised eyebrows. The Argentine pope, 87, often speaks informally, jokes using colloquialisms and even swears in private.
However, he has become known for his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, beginning with his famous comment, “Who am I to judge?” in 2013 about a priest who allegedly had a gay lover in the past.
Source: AP
