Gossip is a “woman’s thing”, Pope Francis is alleged to have told a bunch of priests at a recent meeting in Rome.
The remark was said to have been made by the pontiff at a closed-door meeting just days after he apologised for reportedly using a homophobic slur.
The head of the Catholic Church, 87, is claimed to have advised the priests, ordained throughout the past 10 years, of “badmouthing” in parishes and congregations
“Gossip is a women’s thing,” he allegedly said. “We wear the trousers, we’ve got to say things.”
His alleged comments were first reported by Silere Non Possum, a Catholic website critical of the pope, before being picked up by mainstream Italian newspapers and agencies.
A collaborator with Silere Non Possum told The Times that they’d a recording of the meeting which they were prepared to released if the Vatican denied the comments had been made.
Francis has previously denounced gossip within the church, describing it because the devil’s work and a plague “worse than Covid” and “terrorism”.
In 2018 he told pilgrims in St Peter’s Square that gossip kills “since the tongue kills, like a knife”.
The Vatican has been contacted for comment.
The alleged remarks are potentially one other highly embarrassing incident for Francis, who has been attempting to boost the role of girls within the church.
On Tuesday the Vatican issued an announcement acknowledging the media storm sparked by his widely reported homophobic remark.
He was said to have made the comment while reaffirming the Catholic Church’s ban on gay priests.
“The Pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those that were offended by way of a term that was reported by others,” Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said.
The apology followed a closed-door meeting on 20 May at an Italian bishops’ conference in Rome, where considered one of the topics discussed was whether to permit celibate gay men to undergo training for priesthood at Catholic seminaries.
Francis was said to have spoken out against the thought.
He was reported within the Italian media as joking that there was already an excessive amount of frociaggine in some seminaries – a highly offensive homophobic Italian slur.
The Italian bishops conference had recently approved a recent document outlining training for Italian seminarians.
The document, which hasn’t been published pending a review by the Holy See, reportedly sought to open some wiggle room within the Vatican’s absolute ban on gay priests.
The Vatican ban was articulated in a 2005 document from the Congregation for Catholic Education, and later repeated in a subsequent document in 2016, which said the church cannot admit to seminaries or ordain men who “practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture”.
Italian is just not Pope Francis’s mother tongue and the Argentine pope has made linguistic mistakes prior to now that raised eyebrows.
His apology has been welcomed by a UK Catholic LGBT+ group.
Martin Pendergast, secretary of LGBT Catholics Westminster Pastoral Council, said: “Given the media frenzy that there was around this, I believe it is rather significant that an apology has come so swiftly and he clearly recognised not only that he’s sorry for many who might need been hurt but in addition that it was homophobic language.”
