The pontiff reportedly made the homophobic remark in a closed-door meeting last week as he told Italian bishops that gay men shouldn’t be allowed to train for the priesthood.

“The Pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who felt offended by the use of a term, as reported by others,” the Vatican said in a Tuesday statement.

“As he (Pope Francis) has said on several occasions, ‘in the Church there is room for everyone, everyone! No one is useless, no one is superfluous, there is room for everyone. Just as we are, everyone.’”

Seems like they’re playing it off as “grandpa had a woopsie”.

  • rustydomino@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I am a Chinese American. I can’t speak for the pope (in fact I’m atheist so I could not care less about the pope). But I can tell you that many recent immigrants who speak English as a second language are very bad at nuances in English. If someone hears the word “fag” in the context of talking about gay men, they’re not all going to pick up that it’s a slur, depending on where and how they’ve heard the term. Many of them will associate fag=gay as a matter of vocabulary. And my experience is that first gen immigrants tend to ignore or avoid pop culture so their overall exposure to language trends and usage are usually poor.