Didn’t learn his lesson, or anti-LGBTQIA through and through?
The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, used the derogatory word to refer to gay people in a closed-door meeting with priests. This is the second time he did this, and only weeks after his office was forced to apologize for using an Italian word that roughly translates to “f*ggotry”.
Francis’s earlier use of the slur was to stress the church’s position not to allow LGBTQIA people to become priests.
This time around, as reported by Italian news agency Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), citing sources present at the meeting at Salesian Pontifical University in Rome: “There is an air of (the slur) in the Vatican”.
Following the hour-and-a-half meeting with around 160 priests, the Vatican Press Office issued a news bulletin summarizing what was discussed. And according to this bulletin and ANSA’s reporting, the pope spoke about a range of topics, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as artificial intelligence. The discussions ended with the topic of admitting men with “homosexual tendencies” into seminaries, reiterating the church’s official opposition that gay men should not be allowed into the priesthood.
With this, the pope’s earlier “apology” for using a slur – which was said to “never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms” – now sounds shallow, if not outright irrelevant.
