“The Pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who felt offended by the use of a term, as reported by others,” the Vatican said in a Tuesday statement.
“As he (Pope Francis) has said on several occasions, ‘in the Church there is room for everyone, everyone! No one is useless, no one is superfluous, there is room for everyone. Just as we are, everyone.’”
Seems like they’re playing it off as “grandpa had a woopsie”.
Honestly, I buy it. If he was uncontrollably homophobic he wouldn’t have steered the church the way he has.
That’s not to say he’s an ally; he’s obviously still a firm proponent of the traditional catholic stances on these things, but it seems to me there’s a difference between continuing to believe a homophobic religion and personally hating gay people.
He never intended for people to find out he was being offensive and homophobic.
This is 2024. I don’t care how old he is. He doesn’t live under a rock. He knows an offensive term for queer people when he uses it.
Come back with a real apology, Francis. And make it yourself, don’t get some lackey to do it for you.
I don’t think we can know what he intended. We can make an assumption based off his past actions, and I’m inclined to believe this explanation. Italian isn’t his first language, he’s old, and I think it’s a likely explanation that he slipped up and made an old man mistake.
Nonsense. That’s like saying a Chinese person in America didn’t intend to call a queer person a fag because they didn’t know the language, slipped up and made an old man mistake.
You do not “slip up” and say bigoted things “by mistake” unless you know they’re bigoted and have said them before.
So unless you’re making the not especially credible claim that he was taught that Italian word and no one ever told him it was offensive, I think it was a terrible excuse.
And he still needs to apologize himself, not send some lackey to do it for him.
I am a Chinese American. I can’t speak for the pope (in fact I’m atheist so I could not care less about the pope). But I can tell you that many recent immigrants who speak English as a second language are very bad at nuances in English. If someone hears the word “fag” in the context of talking about gay men, they’re not all going to pick up that it’s a slur, depending on where and how they’ve heard the term. Many of them will associate fag=gay as a matter of vocabulary. And my experience is that first gen immigrants tend to ignore or avoid pop culture so their overall exposure to language trends and usage are usually poor.
Even if you’re right and this is the case about Francis, he still needs to apologize himself.
sorry, i don’t agree. you can believe what you want, however we can’t really know… and i’m not convinced.
edit: to clarify: i do believe his position about gay priests is homophobic. i just don’t believe that he intentionally meant to use a slur while discussing it, and am willing to believe the “old man slip-up” excuse. it’s hair-splitting, i know.
The newspaper articles, which were translated from Italian, claimed the Pope had said there is “frociaggine” – which translates in English to “faggotry” – in some of the seminaries.
Nobody doesn’t know that word is extremely offensive. This isn’t like grandpa saying “negro”, it’s a gross slur.
The 87-year-old pontiff reportedly made the homophobic remark in a closed-door meeting last week as he told Italian bishops that gay men shouldn’t be allowed to train for the priesthood.
Well, they’d better brace for an even more severe priest shortage then. I’ve met many Catholic priests over the years, and based on their mannerisms, I’d estimate that a sizeable minority were nearly falling out of the closet. Not a big deal IMO, as most of them were good guys as far as priests go. They cared about and wanted to do what was best for their parishioners. And they took their commitment to the church very seriously. But excluding them from the seminary will just make the current priest shortage even worse.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The 87-year-old pontiff reportedly made the homophobic remark in a closed-door meeting last week as he told Italian bishops that gay men shouldn’t be allowed to train for the priesthood.
The Pope’s comments came to light on Monday when two Italian newspapers - the Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica – reported on the May 20 meeting, citing sources in attendance.
Francis’ comments were made in the context of proposals from the Italian bishops to amend guidelines on candidates to seminaries.
The Vatican ruled in 2005 that the church cannot allow the ordination of men who are actively gay or have “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies.
Two years later he told the Italian bishops not to accept gay candidates for the priesthood.
A source close to the Pope told CNN that the phrase could also be understood as there is a “gay climate” in the seminaries.
The original article contains 371 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I wonder why gay people keep feeling called to the vocations that don’t let you marry and instead surround you with people of your gender
I always thought it was somewhat the opposite. When a society does not accept gay people as people, religious orders (priest/sister/brother) is an acceptable way to not have relationships with the opposite gender.
- Are there so many gay priests because that is an acceptable way to not participate in heterosexual conventions?
- Is greater acceptance in society one of the drivers for declining religious orders?
