Italian media has said that the pope used a highly derogatory slur against LGBTQ+ people at a bishops conference. The remark may sour attempts by the pope to make the church more welcoming.
Pope Francis allegedly used a highly offensive term to refer to LGBTQ+ people during a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops, Italian media reported on Tuesday.
The major Italian daily newspapers La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera both cited anonymous sources as saying that the pope had made the remark while reiterating his position against gay people becoming priests.
The 87-year-old pontiff was reported as saying that the Catholic seminaries were already too full of “frociaggine” — a highly derogatory term in Italian.
He has since issued an apology:
Seems like they’re playing it off as “grandpa had a woopsie”.
Italian isn’t his first language, so it’s possible, but I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt.
All things considered, I am. He’s old, Italian isn’t his first language, and he has a history of progressive changes in favor of the lgbtq+ community. I’m more inclined to believe it was a mistake than to think it was intentional or malicious. Especially given how quickly an apology has been issued.
It doesn’t matter what word he used, he was using it in an anti LGBT sentiment.
Here, I removed the slur. This isn’t any better. Italian fluency wasn’t the problem and didn’t change his argument.
i think it does matter wrt what he actually said or intended to say. whether he’s being homophobic in his position regard gay clergy isn’t a matter of debate: he is.
the issue is that he claims not to have intended to use an offensive term, and apologizes for the offense cause by the term. That i’m willing to believe. i’m not debating his gay clergy policy, which i obviously agree is bigoted.
You’re right, it’s very likely he wasn’t intending to use a slur. But it seems to me like a lot of the reporting is “he didn’t mean to disrespect people!” when that’s not the case. The pope’s intentions were absolutely to disrespect people, just by his actions, and not by that specific word. the specific phrasing he used to do so doesn’t really matter.
That specific word in Italian has multiple meanings, one of which being something like “excessive/useless detail or addition, especially when done for the cool factor only” and another being “gayness”.
Without the full context of the sentence, it’s very hard to say what he meant or what he was saying.
Of course the word is still originating from the slur and shouldn’t be used by the pope, but it’s technically possible that wasn’t even used in relation to any minority (just as much as the opposite)
Unless I missed some extra info or source that has the full context, it’s hard to say