Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/28/pope-francis-admits-using-homophobic-italian-slur-frociaggine.html
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*not-that-shocked.gif
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in the Church there is room for everyone, everyone!*
*Caveat: May not apply if you are gay, trans, protestant, excommunicated, divorced, engaged in premarital sex, pagan, Orthodox (Eastern or Oriental), atheist, agnostic, Jewish, have had an abortion, use birth control, or think the Pope is just a man in a funny hat.
(/s for the alternatively humored.)
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A “source close to the Pope” given anonymity by CNN says it means merely “gay climate.”
finally some non-depressing climate news
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He is apologizing for using a fraught term, not for saying that the seminaries are “too gay.” I don’t care what term he uses, this is a homophobic state of mind.
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well to be fair, if you are gay, it’s pretty hypocritical to accept income and health care for life from an organization that works tirelessly to harm progressive causes. i don’t have a lot of sympathy for woe is me closeted priests who enrich themselves on the earnings of the right wing parishioners and paint themselves as victims.
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You know…I’m starting to think that maybe Pope Francis is full of shit.
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Doesn’t affect the sentiment.
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I’m not religious (at all, not even a little), but I think I can understand the position of someone who holds deep religious belief and as part of that sees his personal orientation as a problem. Then chooses to become a celibate priest instead - to serve and to avoid sin. I get it, I would never do it, but I get it.
I am 100% certain that few people join the priesthood to ‘enrich’ themselves. The couple of people I grew up with who went that way joined out of an excess of belief and a desire to perform public service (as they saw it). How that evolved over the >30 years since I have no idea since we lost touch.
As for the pope - as much as he has been an improvement over any previous pope - he is still an old man at the head of an ancient institution which has literally millennia of monstrous violence and abuse behind it. I have no respect for the church whatsoever.
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Maybe not in the sense of becoming a millionaire, but free housing and medical care allows one to save up a surprising amount.
And it’s not “serving” if you accept said healthcare and income for life, while being in violation of a core tenet of a faith that fails on that and many other issues.
I was an altar server. The pastor of my parish was named in leaked documents as having moved around abusers, while never being documented as participating himself. The rumor I heard was that a small set of truly evil folks blackmailed the ones who “just” had a boyfriend or girlfriend… I’m sure you can imagine how such things spiral, especially paired with the sagas with the Vatican Bank. (Which famously rejected many of the AML rules/procedures the rest of the EU adopted post 9/11 and post breakup of the Mafia in the USA in the late 90s)
Are you aware that since Iraq was not a war of defense, and we lack a draft, soldiers who participated technically are supposed to go to confession?
The Catholic Church, in recent years, has pushed hard on issue like abortion and contraception while avoiding mention of literal war crimes with scores dead in rubble.
Someone who accepts housing and income from an organization whose core precepts they are in conflict with but… uh… feels bad about it?
They’re not a good person. They’re manipulative cowards who can’t stand to just be a social worker or nonprofit professional, a casual narcicism that demands they be literally holy when they’re anything but.
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Yeah, the celibacy thing is clearly something that many priests (of any orientation) end up not being able to handle, and one of the many manifestations of that is that when they do have sex it’s much less likely to be responsible, consensual, and safe sex. There’s the whole sexual abuse cover-up thing but even before that got widely reported there were studies done both inside of and outside of the church going back decades showing that priests were dying of sexually-aquired-AIDS at a rate much higher than the general population. Apparently they didn’t want to be recognized going into a pharmacy and buying condoms.
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thanks for calling my dead aunt “a hypocrite”… she was both in a committed relationship with a woman and a devoted Catholic… But who cares about real people and their complicated lives… 
Most people don’t end up in the big house known as the vatican surrounded by the plundered wealth collected by the church over the years… most spend their time working in their parishes, sometimes being awful and hurting others, sometimes actually helping people from their POV…
Those monsters in the US military, getting free room and board during boot camp!!! /s
Again, thanks for maligning my entire paternal family, without knowing them. Good work!
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What seems more notable than the fact that Francis is less huggable than advertised is his assessment of his organization’s culture.
I’m not entirely sure what a ‘gay climate’ is, or how you’d verify that your seminaries are full of totally het celibacy; but if the pope is being peevish about it it’s likely to either be reasonably dramatic and/or something that someone who has his ear is downright obsessed with.
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Tell that to Frank Kameny.
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I’m not going to defend the church. It has not been a good thing for my family. But I do respect people who choose a life of service- if they follow through. I’ve known plenty of truly shitty social workers and a few truly decent priests and pastors of various stripes.
Power structures and perverse incentives to preserve those structures at the expense of doing what is right - that is a big problem. The Catholic Church definitely fits that bill. As do most Social work bureaucracies at some point or other. That doesn’t mean individuals within those systems aren’t actively trying to do good work.
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I agree – it’s part of my issue with whom I posted about. (Gay clergy not… literally every gay person, like some posters seem determined to see and be offended by?)
My concern is if you’re in a lifelong commitment to an institution perpetuating your own victimization, it sets up the perverse incentives you mention to not speak out, while drawing resources away from more secular resources.
And that’s certainly not one unique to the Catholic church either… and ultimately, conflating the individuals whatever their position within an institution, whatever their actions, as evil because of their inclusion in that institution is just wrong (with a few exceptions).
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For real though, it is actually pretty hard to find decent paying employment in a bigoted and hateful environment without compromising with one’s higher ideals and hopes somewhat.
Catholic, corporate, whatever kind…
It’s a whole complicated 1000 year story really and gay people are already a part of the Catholic story very much. Afaik they always have been in a way that is maybe more visible and less “tokeny/scapegoaty” than with Protestants.
I am a not Catholic, but raised half by Catholics enough to have some experience with the practicalities of life as a Catholic, and these perspectives are just that: impressions in the soft sand of my mind.
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Pope Francis turning out to be a hypocrite does not surprise me.
Power corrupts.
Bias is as bias does.
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