Vatican City: According to Italian media, Pope Francis used a strictly derogatory term referring to the LGBTQ community at a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops. He made the usage while insisting that gay people should not be allowed to become priests, Reuters reported.
According to the two largest circulation dailies in Italy, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera, the pope said that seminaries or priesthood colleges are already too full of "frociaggine", a vulgar term in Italian that roughly translates to "faggottness".
However, the Vatican did not respond to Reuters' request for comment.
When La Repubblica cited that they received the news from several unspecified sources, Corriere said that a few unnamed bishops who attended the meeting were its source for the story. The latter media added that the bishops suggested that being an Argentine, the pope might not have realised the meaning of the Italian term as offensive.
It was the political gossip website Dagposia that first reported the pope's alleged usage of vulgar terms against the gay community. The incident regarding the matter happened on May 20 at the Italian Bishops Conference, which started a four-day assembly with a non-public meeting with the Christian superior leader.
So far, the 87-year-old pope was considered to be showing a more welcoming approach towards the LGBTQ community. Just after his ascent to the papal throne, he had said in 2013 that if a gay person seeks God with goodwill, who is he to judge? Triggering a backlash from the conservative sessions of the church, he allowed priests to bless members of the same-sex community last year.
However, he had met Italian bishops in 2018 and told them to screen priesthood applications carefully and reject suspected homosexuals, Reuters reported.