Did Pope Francis really just talk about troppa frociaggine again? To hear Italy’s ANSA wire service tell it, he did.
This time, according to ANSA, Pope Francis said, “In the Vatican, there is an air of faggotry.”
ANSA reported the remark on Tuesday evening, Rome Time, citing sources who were present at the closed-door meeting with priests of Rome earlier on Tuesday at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome.
This is the second time in recent weeks that Pope Francis has reportedly used the term, behind closed doors on both occasions. The Vatican issued an apology of sorts after news of the first reported use got out and sparked significant consternation, though the press office statement in which the apology came neither directly admitted the pope had actually used the offensive word nor acknowledged its hurtfulness.
It is unclear whether Pope Francis approved the apology or even saw it before the press office issued the statement.
The Vatican News piece on the more recent June 11th event contained no direct quotes from Pope Francis and only one word between quotation marks—“pillars”—attributed to Bishop Michele Di Tolve, who was apparently describing the roughly 160 priests present for the occasion, all of whom had between eleven and thirty-nine years of priestly ministry.
A summary from the Holy See press office stated that Francis, toward the end of the event, “returned to the theme of the admission of persons with homosexual tendencies to the seminaries, stressing again the need to welcome and accompany them in the Church and the prudential indication of the Dicastery for Clergy circa their entrance into seminary.”
La Repubblica had a piece citing its own sources—also present at the event, according to the leading daily—who told the paper the pope had indeed spoken of the subject to say that persons with homosexual tendencies ought not be admitted to priestly formation, even though there may be many really excellent persons—persone “bravissime”—and “good boys”—ragazzi buoni—according to ANSA, who believe they have a priestly vocation and require accompaniment.
La Repubblica also reported that Pope Francis alluded to a gay lobby in the Vatican, precisely in the context of his remarks about aria di frociaggine. It was unclear whether that was the source’s interpolation or the reporter’s own, but there was no mention of it in the Vatican’s official summary from the press office.
The piece from La Repubblica contained a good deal of detail from and about the pope’s question-and-answer session with the priests of his diocese.
The real kicker, however, was the pope’s praise for his former vicar, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis. La Repubblica reported that the pope praised him as a “great man” who will “do well in his new office,” that of the Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary, responsible for matters of the so-called “internal forum” including the lifting of penalties and the removal of impediments, as well as the issuing of indulgences.
The Vatican’s summary said Pope Francis praised De Donatis for his great “capacity to understand and forgive,” which the summary described as “precious qualities in his new role, in which he is called to be ‘expression of the merciful visage of the Father’.”
De Donatis is the fellow who first claimed only to have learned of the allegations against Fr. Marko Rupnik shortly before Christmas of 2022, when the scandal exploded, and also claimed only to be following Francis’s lead when he decided to keep Rupnik in the various roles the erstwhile celebrity artist-priest and accused serial predator had in the Rome vicariate.
De Donatis is the one who commissioned a canonically dubious review of the art house Rupnik founded and gave it a clean bill of health. De Donatis, in short, is up to his neck in the Rupnik business.
Pope Francis also reportedly had a dig at traditionalists, saying they are “not ok”—non vanno bene—according to ANSA, and warning more generally against the dangers of ideology.
The first frociaggine contretemps appears also to have brought about yet another round of restrictions for journalists on the Vatican beat.
Prepared texts are now apparently to be held until someone in the Pontifical Household has checked them against delivery. Friends in the corps tell this journalist that the closed-circuit audio of papal audiences is no longer to be played in real-time at the press office, though it bears mention that the audio feed frequently cuts off once Francis goes off script.
Folks in comms are mum about the business but reports of papal events that have come through the official Vatican Media portal have been late, of late, and frequently thin—as was the case with Tuesday afternoon’s Vatican News story on the pope’s meeting with Roman parish priests.
It’s tough to avoid the impression that the Vatican comms apparatus, at least, is by and large being made pointless, and that the pope’s handlers have in essence determined their principal can’t be let out in public unsupervised.
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He is well past the age of clear thought, as his statements show, no matter his title. He is damaging Catholic teaching and sowing confusion. It is past time for him to retire.
No doubt the homosexual community will soon adopt the word, both in English and Italian, as a mantle of pride.
It is very disturbing that the Holy Father keeps referring to those who keep to the those who hold to the doctrines and teachings of the Church for 2000 years as ideologists. The doctrines of the Church based upon the teachings of Jesus are not ideologies, but truths. It is a serious mistake to embrace the teachings of contemporary secular culture to apply to Church teachings. This understanding of reality, as Pope Benedict XVI taught when he visited the US in “radical secularism.” I do not believe it well help in the salvation of souls.
Amen!
I find it disgusting that any member of the holy cloth at any level show hate toward any human being regardless of their self disclosue, nationality, disability, guilt, illness, or any other position of difference from majority. A member of the holy cloth is to be the epitamy of walking and talking the way that Jesus would. A Christmas Eve candle lite mass was completely changed for those attending this year as they listened to the priest compare gay marriage blessing to bringing your pet to church for blessing day. A mother and child hold their candles tight as they watch a parishioner fall to her knees and hold her head. The mother tries to pass a peice of candy to her thinking shes not well. Then suddenly as the priest turns away she gets up to leave with out being seen. The priest has verbally upset her on this precious holiday where there was clearly no place for his statement. He said the church was welcoming to guys and blessing their marriage but then compared them to animals. How did this seem correct sermon to a man of gods cloth? There is no room for hate with God and when there is church becomes an unsacrate place. Certainly perisoners don’t want to listen to hatred in a sermon when they walk as Jesus would himself. If people of gods cloth are not fit for the job or if they have hatered they should be replaced just as we pray Jesus Christ delivers us from evil.
Telling the truth is not hatred but loving, merciful and compassionate! Withholding the truth IS hatred of the person, basically saying they don’t deserve the Truth! The Church cannot bless sin, period!
The personal magisterium of Pope Francis needs a bar of soap in the mouth.
Then he can pass it around! 🤪
Ah, the tangled web one weaves when one first seeks to deceive some, some of the time and others the rest of the time but not sharing the rest of the story anytime with anyone who are seeking to have their ears tickled. Certainly only God knows the sincerity of this Pope’s heart.
As has been said, sincerity is no test of anything but itself.
Seems he can’t please either the Altmans or the Martins! 🥵
Of course, many homosexuals are drawn to same sex groups like clergy & religious. Allow priests to marry. Then they will be able to sort themselves out. Some priests will want wives; some may want husbands, some might stay single. So what? A good soul will be a good spiritual leader regardless of his sexual orientation.
“A good soul will be a good spiritual leader regardless of his sexual orientation.”
Uh, not if he is involved in aberrant sexual behavior. It would be disingenuous to use the adjective “good” to describe that type of person. Plain evidence, there, of a very lost individual.
“A good soul will be a good spiritual leader regardless of his sexual orientation.”
**************
Men & women can be attracted to a wide variety of things & some of those remain illegal. Are there sexual orientations you would exclude from your statement?
I had a family member that worked in corrections & some offenders who had been convicted of abusing children thought themselves good souls. They believed they were offering love to kids coming from dysfunctional homes.
Christians don’t get to write our own rules about marriage & family. Christ was crystal clear about what marriage consists of.
AMEN!
Nope! Any man who seeks a husband is seeking a sinful lifestyle, is sacrificing nothing to be a “priest”, is not a good soul nor a good spiritual leader but will be a disaster! Being married will solve nothing bc denominations that allow married ministers are suffering the same issues! Christ expected His priests to sacrifice – children, wives! – to serve Him and be rewarded 100 times!
If this continues, soon we won’t know what a pope actually said, versus what his advisors want us to think he said.
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights gets to the heart of the matter in a June 12, 2024 column:
“The use of the gay slur is not the real issue, though it is surprising to hear the pope speak this way twice within three weeks, and just two weeks after his apology was issued for the first infraction. The real issue is the prevalence of homosexuals in the seminaries and in the Vatican.
“… the damage that homosexuals—not pedophiles—have done to the Catholic Church cannot be overstated. They are responsible for 81 percent of all the cases of the sexual abuse of minors from 1950 to 2002; almost all of the males were postpubescent.
“Pope Francis didn’t need the data to know that homosexuals have taken over too much of the Catholic Church…
“Pope Francis is clearly worried that there are still too many homosexuals in the priesthood. Calling gays (a derogatory name) should not mask what is bugging the pope. His critics are trying to divert attention from the real problem.”
https://www.catholicleague.org/pope-worried-about-fags-in-the-vatican/
Your post clearly defines the problem. Unfortunately,we have numerous cardinals and bishops who are “same sex attracted”. I wonder when they don’t support the traditional liturgy, don’t support the heroes who battle abortion and fail to speak up when politicians support abortion
Our Church is completely undermined. Far too many men were consecrated as priests who were unworthy and betrayed their vows. It is an unfathomable sacrifice to enter Holy Orders.
Allowing married priests would seem like the answer giving them the care and love that every human craves but then I read about Justice Alito whose wife flies a flag that causes a media maelstrom.
“for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer.” –Saint Francis
In light of the Papa’s interest in ‘faggotry’, does anyone know why he decided to write the Preface (dated 11 March 2024) to Father James Martin SJ’s latest book ‘Lazzaro, Vieni Fuori’? (Published by Liberia Editrice Vaticana, the Italian translation of ‘Come Forth’ – HarperOne)