Referring to the presence of homosexuals in seminaries during a closed meeting, Pope Francis, who then spoke in Italian, used a term that was, to say the least, vulgar and insulting to designate homosexuals.
Unease in the Vatican. A week ago, the sovereign pontiff, whose mother tongue is Spanish, held a closed-door meeting in Italian during which his vocabulary against homosexuals did not fail to startle his audience. While Pope Francis invited bishops not to welcome openly homosexual people into religious seminaries, the term from the dialect of Rome “frociaggine”, which could be translated as “faggot”, came out of his mouth.
“The Pope never intended to offend or express himself with homophobic remarks and apologizes to those who felt offended by the use of a word,” reacted this Tuesday, May 28 the Vatican in a press release as the information began to appear everywhere in the media around the world.
Nearby Corriere della Sera, bishops present at the meeting said that at the time, it was “obvious that the sovereign pontiff was not aware of how insulting his remarks were in Italian.” Moreover, “more than embarrassment”, the word used by Pope Francis would have been greeted with “a few incredulous laughter” as the blunder was “obvious”, Italian not being the mother tongue of the sovereign pontiff . A version also confirmed by La Repubblica.