Pope Francis Apologizes for Using Italian Gay Slur

By Olivia Craighead, a news writer for the Cut who covers pop culture and celebrity.  Previously, she wrote about pop culture and entertainment at Gawker.

Dio mio! Pope Francis has apologized for using a gay slur during a private meeting. But it also kind of sounds like he never really thought we were going to find out that he said it in the first place?

According to several Italian news outlets, the pope was in a private meeting at the Italian Bishops’ Conference when the topic of allowing gay men into seminaries to train for the priesthood came up. Pope Francis was reportedly against the idea, claiming that there was already too much frociaggine in the seminaries. If you’re looking for a translation, it’s roughly the English-language slur for gay men turned into an adjective. It’s just as offensive in Italian as it is in English, so it’s not the sort of thing you want anyone — let alone the supposedly progressive pope — to say.

On Tuesday, the Vatican released a statement from the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni. After noting that Francis was in “a closed-door conversation” when he uttered the slur (as if that makes it better?), Bruni shared the actual apology.

“As he has stated on many occasions, ‘There is room for everyone in the Church, for everyone! No one is useless; no one is superfluous; there is room for everyone. Just as we are, everyone,’” the statement read. “The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he apologizes to those who felt offended by the use of a term, as reported by others.”

Reading between the lines, this apology basically amounts to, “Whoops! You weren’t supposed to hear that, my bad.” So, sure, there is room for “everyone” in the Catholic Church. But if you’re a gay guy who is thinking about becoming a man of the cloth, your future boss is using slurs to refer to you. Can you send an HR complaint to God?