On June 1, Mike Lewis wrote a compassionate, sensitive commentary on the homophobia experienced by gay priests. This is a subject of renewed widespread discussion in the Church following Pope Francis’s reputed frociaggine (“f****try”) remarks about gay seminarians last month. I highly recommend Mike’s essay.

I’d like to write on the subject, however, in a somewhat arch way, because some people find levity emotionally helpful when it comes to things like this. I do myself. This only represents my opinions, not necessarily those of other Where Peter Is contributors or of other people whom I know. In the proud tradition, so to speak, of Pope Francis critics, I’m going to lay out my thoughts on this as a series of numbered propositional statements.

1. Pope Francis did in fact, assuming his words were reported accurately, use a homophobic slur. The Vatican’s apology is a bit mealy-mouthed about this (although it’s suggestive that “the Vatican’s apology” is something that exists in the first place, which isn’t always the case), but it does not do a ton of good to mince words about it. Frociaggine is the kind of word that one is not meant to use without intending to give offense if one is not gay oneself. I’m not particularly bothered about it, but that is because I have a thick skin when it comes to this sort of thing. Lots of LGBT Catholics and their allies are hurt and outraged and have reason to be.
2. Having said that, a look at the recent stages of Francis’s pontificate still shows major achievements in this area that aren’t vitiated by an elderly bishop, even the Pope, saying something inappropriate. Fiducia supplicans is a part of Catholic teaching now; even Dignitas infinita expressly characterized laws against homosexuality as an affront to the dignity of gay people. Plenty of courageous openings to traditionally disfavored groups are undertaken by leaders who share or feel some of that disfavor themselves. This makes the use of a slur more surprising and disappointing than it would be otherwise, yet paradoxically also less high-stakes.
3. The incident is, from a certain standpoint, funny. Just on this one issue of gay seminarians (something that people in Church leadership tend to get skittish about even when they have a revealed willingness to risk a lot to make life easier for gay laypeople), we’ve gone from lengthy explanations twenty years ago to “there’s already too much f****try in the priesthood” now. There is a certain sick humor to that, to the jarring word choice, to the fact that this is the sort of thing for which the Vatican issues apologies now, and to the strange relationship between level of offense given and degree of practical consequences that I mentioned above.
4. The previous two points might seem like I’m minimizing this. Compared to how intensely hurt and even betrayed some of my LGBT Catholic friends feel, I might be a bit, but I’m not trying to. Using language like this is still something that Francis and future popes, and frankly bishops and clergy at all levels, should take care not to do in the future. Words are in and of themselves only words, but they reveal and in some cases reinforce things about attitudes, and attitudes are what motivates action. Words thus should be guarded more carefully than they in many cases are, and in this day and age private venues are never quite as private as we think.

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Nathan Turowsky

Nathan Turowsky is a native New Englander, an alumnus of Boston University School of Theology, and one of the relatively few Catholic alumni of that primarily Wesleyan institution. He works in the nonprofit sector and writes at Silicate Siesta.