ROME — Pope Francis berated a group of young priests from Rome this week, accusing them of gossiping about him and acting like women.
“In the parishes we hear people say: ‘What is this pope thinking? What’s with this pope?” the pontiff told a group of 72 priests ordained in the last ten years at a closed-door meeting this week.
“I know that there are parishes where this kind of gossip happens. Gossip doesn’t help. Gossip is for women,” he told them.
“We wear pants, we need to say things openly,” he said.
Local media tied the pope’s comments, interpreted as sexist and anti-women, with anti-homosexual comments earlier this week that alienated many gays and progressives.
On Tuesday, the Vatican was obliged to apologize for remarks the pope made last week during a meeting with over 200 Italian bishops, where he reiterated the Church’s ban on admitting gays to the seminary and added that there was already too much “faggotry” in the Church.
The bishops should “kick all the queers [checche] out of seminary, even those who are only semi-oriented,” the pope added on that occasion.
Matteo Bruni, the director of the Vatican Press Office, said that the pope “never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term that was reported by others.”
The editors of the Milan-based women’s magazine, Donna Moderna, dubbed the words about women and gossip “the pope’s latest gaffe.”
“What is happening in the Vatican?” the editors asked in apparent astonishment.