The Pope is Christ’s vicar on earth, the spiritual head of the Church. But this Pope can also be humanly indiscreet and imprudent.
Francis has had to make an apology to homosexuals after an expression he used in a closed meeting with Italian bishops – “frociaggine” – roughly equivalent to the English slang “faggotry” was leaked to a gossip website, Dagospia; he used it in connection with the question of whether gay men should be admitted to seminaries. Naturally, homosexuals were unimpressed.
The Vatican’s apology was clear: Matteo Bruni, the director of the Vatican’s press office, said Francis was aware of the newspaper reports about the closed-door conversation and “apologises to those who felt offended by the use of the term, reported by others”.
“As he stated on several occasions, ‘In the church there is room for everyone, for everyone. Nobody is useless, nobody is superfluous, there is room for everyone. Just as we are, all of us,'” said Bruni.
“The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and apologises to those who felt offended by the use of a term, reported by others.”
The interesting thing about this statement is the reference to a “closed-door conversation”.
And indeed, the fact that this was an assembly of the Italian bishops should have alerted the pope to the need to watch his language: the bishops include gossips, something he should have had no illusions about.
The Pope, moreover, has form when it comes to earthy language; in a previous encounter with seminarians, he shocked observers with his coarse language.
Any pope is human, but the very fact that his words may reverberate around the world, not just the Catholic world, means that he has the elementary responsibility to think before he speaks.
On the question of whether homosexuals should be admitted to seminaries, the pope reportedly said that while it was important to embrace everyone, it was likely that a gay person could risk leading a double life.
Here it is important that Francis should distinguish between men who are actively homosexual and those who are homosexual by inclination. Many men of homosexual orientation are in the clergy and in seminaries already.
What matters is not what a man’s orientation is but that it is sublimated in the self-sacrifice of celibacy, not to make priests and religious miserable, but to put them fully at the service of the people of God.
Many such priests are exemplary pastors.
What the pope might have in mind is the situation that obtained in some seminaries which were notorious for active homosexuality among staff and members and where innocent seminarians were exposed to a culture of flagrant vice.
And that culture did indeed lead to the ordination of priests who led double lives, lacking spiritual integrity.
This has no place in the church.
Let us hope that this episode has taught Pope Francis the dangers of careless talk, or at least, of bad language.
He may also reflect that there is no such thing as a closed door conversation in Rome.