Homosexuality is strongly correlated with having been sexually abused, emotionally abused, neglected, or exposed to homosexual porn as a child. If you want to combat a culture of stuffing things deep down, you have to not ordain gay men. The idea of recommending men for the seminary upon finding out that they have harder problems with chastity (which is the virtue of rightly ordered relationships, not merely the ability to refrain from sex) than most seems quite backwards (which is why Pope Benedict required that they not be admitted). You might as well select your seminarians for their poor grades and bad people skills. It's not their fault, but it means they should seek their purpose elsewhere.
Possibly the Holy Father is throwing shade because homosexuals in the clergy, and in seminaries, tend to produce a highly unwelcoming environment for heterosexual men, and to politically maneuver other gay clerics into various posts. There's also the part where over 80% of the identified clergy sexual abuse victims were post-pubescent boys - i.e., their abusers were homosexuals. I suspect most did not initially join the priesthood for the purpose of finding victims, as there are ways to do that without 7 years of school first.
Every gay man who chooses chastity chooses it heroically, and then fights for it heroically.
The only time I addressed culpability at all was to say that homosexuals are NOT at fault for their disordered desires. I didn't really address relative evil of sins at all, so I'm not sure where your getting your associations from. If it must be said, men with deep-seated desires to rape women should also be barred from the seminary. But I think that is generally accepted as being the case. So I think you are reading into my post things that are not there.
Fighting is a common spiritual analogy. St. Paul talks about the armor of God in Ephesians since we are contending against principalities and powers, about taking every thought captive and fighting with weapons that have the power to demolish strongholds in Corinthians, advises Timothy to fight the good fight of faith. Our Lord uses fighting imagery of home invaders. Jacob wrestled with God. The Psalms are filled with references to warfare, some of them quite brutal. Just a few examples. There is no reason to throw out all of this simply because there are verses where it isn't explicitly used. Sometimes the spiritual life feels like warfare. Sometimes it doesn't. Depends on where you're at.
If you think there should be a preponderance of evidence before making any claims, even in informal comment sections, you don't demonstrate that very well by saying that chastity is not something that can be fought for, in spite of the preponderance of Biblical evidence the other way.
The Catholic Church has to actually apply timeless and true teachings on faith and morals to the real world. That isn't optional, or something we can wait on for several centuries until the scientific speculation has been filtered sufficiently. This results in errors, whenever our understanding of the real world is incorrect. I can see how declaring one's opinion on how to apply it as solid and infallible teaching would cause people trouble, but if they think the Church ought to be right about science, even when the scientists are wrong, they might need to go do some studying about the authority of the Church.
The evidence from 2010 says that nearly 70% of gay men were sexually abused as children, which is well over the population average. The correlations are there. Now, at least 90% of sexual abuse victims do not become homosexuals. It's rather like how psychopaths are considerably more likely to become violent criminals than your average joe, but also they are not particularly likely to become violent criminals (despite what the psychologists thought, before they considered checking outside the prison population). Not enough to cause the problem of itself, but undoubtedly a factor in some way.
Perhaps "desordenado" and then pivot to a discussion of sanjuanist mystical theology and the purgation of disordered attachments (which is always in order to make room for God.)
There are plenty of ways he could express his viewpoint on this matter without resorting to the kinds of language he seems to be in the habit of employing. It would take careful and deliberate speaking to get his point across, and would have to be a lengthier diatribe on the topic than he probably is used to, but it is possible. I don't think Pope Francis is capable of this kind of articulate, nuanced way of speaking, however.
Something like this is probably better communicated in writing, anyway, through an official Vatican channel, possible as a reinforcement or update to the 2005 guidance. But I don't think there is a willingness on the Pope or many of his close advisors to do this either. Putting something out in writing would surely meet with harsh criticism from the secular world and the liberals/progressives in the Church, which is something that Pope Francis and those close to him try to avoid at all costs. As a result, we're left with little more than second- or third-hand accounts of his views, that can be hand-waved away by the Vatican Press Office as the ramblings of an 87 year old man. It's a tactic that is trying to be used to please both sides. But I think it's likely all we're going to get under this pontificate on this topic.
The official communiques are really for the lawyers. While there is a universal air of reverence for the papacy, you would be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world that is applying or following everything Pope Francis or Benedict passed on to us. Everyone picks and chooses what to emphasize. If you are working to reach Catholic culture you go through other channels in the modern world.
As Mr. Eric Blair discussed in his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four", the purpose of Newspeak was to make wrongthink and doublethink literally unspeakable. Control the language, and thus control the thoughts. If there is no "acceptable" word or phrase for Pope Francis to use that would express his honest thoughts on a topic, it seems we're nicely down the road to Fratello Grosso.
Sodomy, homosexual acts, gay lifestyle, homosexual unchastity, same-sex sins against the sixth commandment, the sexual sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance... I heard of one priest who referred to it as "the sin of the people of San Francisco".
People are forgetting that he is using this term in clsoed meetings with bishops and priests. The fact is that this "locker room" talk has been leaked by rats to attack the holy father to the public, and that's not being talked about. Can bishops and priests not keep their mouths shut about what is being talked about in their meetings? Oh, and don't forget the age of Pope Francis. Everyone reading this has a grandpa or great grandpa the same age who used (or used) way worse language than this lol
The leaking of the comments is definitely itself worth commenting upon.
A small part of me has wondered if the reason he feels comfortable using these terms in private conversation, though, is the fact that many people who are in the gay community or “allies” actual embrace offensive terms in some situations, often the flamboyantly gay and their trashy straight friends. (Like gay men who will “jokingly” hit on their straight friends and then be like, “Sorry, I don’t mean it, I’m just such a f**!” and they all laugh like it’s not inappropriate all around.)
Part of me wonders if Francis is actually conversant with people who are on that side of things—a generation of clerics who act like, “Oh, we’ve lived through everything, we can talk very frankly about all kinds of sexual subjects around each other, it’s so natural and normal.”
I wonder a little if the real story here is that the leakers are people who see Francis’s offhanded and casual familiarity with crude subjects as a sign of the company he keeps and their willingness to downplay the seriousness of sins against chastity by being flippant and hyperbolic about it. If that makes sense.
A Cardinal or two could not keep their mouths shut over what went on in the election of Pope Francis, despite having an oath that led to excommunication if broken. Electronic bugging is common in the Vatican. The only thing that might remain fairly secret is the Pope's current medical status. If the Pope doesn't know this, then he's probably going senile.
Most of the older people that I know either also used bad language when they were younger, or do not use it now. Bad language is not a new problem for the Pope either. It's been reported on before, it just hasn't been used to refer to a "protected class" before and never coated the Catholic media before.
As with most of the Pope Francis headlines, the remedy is in his own hands and there is nothing anyone else can do to save him from himself.
One obvious remedy is for him to assume that everything he says is being broadcast to the planet, unless he is talking to himself or a tiny group of the most trusted confidants. As the old saying goes, three people can keep a secret, provided that two of them are dead. Though complaining about leaks at this late date is laughable. Remember the multiple "off the record" conversations with Eugenio Scalfari?
Another remedy might be to talk only from a tightly edited script. No off the cuff speeches. But that would be wishing for him to be constitutionally different.
Another obvious remedy might be to act and talk with minimal consistency. Don't moan about a gay lobby inside the Vatican after showing such visible favour to Monsignor Ricca, Father Inzoli, Cardinal McCarrick, Father James Martin, Cardinal Tucho, Archbishop Paglia, Sister Jeannine Gramick, etc. Don't let Tucho produce documents like Fiducia Supplicans.
Yet another obvious remedy. If you are so unhappy about so many homosexuals in seminaries.... Why give Father Jimmy yet more free propaganda?
James Martin, SJ
@JamesMartinSJ
I was honored to meet with Pope Francis for an hour-long conversation today at Casa Santa Marta. With his permission to share this, the Holy Father said he has known many good, holy and celibate seminarians and priests with homosexual tendencies. Once again, he confirmed my ministry with LGBTQ people and showed his openness and love for the LGBTQ community. It was also a great joy to receive his blessing on the 25th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood.
The Scalfari conversations were not "off the record" in the sense of "expected to remain confidential". Scalfari did not make recordings or take notes, but relied on his memory instead, and the stated intention from the start was to publish. His usual method. If I remember right, the Pope generally approved of what he published as accurate to his thoughts and opinions, albeit not word-for-word. Scalfari did not do anything blatantly dishonest there. We could question whether his memory was accurate, biased, or otherwise problematic, and why anyone would use this method at all, but he certainly wasn't leaking.
I really like the part about wishing for the Pope to be constitutionally different... and agree with the rest.
It’s a popular notion, and has been for quite a while, that the best way to lead is to use the language comfortable to the people. It’s particularly a problem in Catholic academia, a comfortable space for Jesuits, among others. This reflects not a pope problem as much as it is a Catholic leadership and academia problem. This is the very good example of why “meeting people with where they are at” in dialogue leads to more confusion and division. In that room the term the Pope used may not have been so much intended as offensive as it was intended as “familiar.” Outside that room it lands as purely divisive and indignant. The most conscientious of leaders lead in language as well. To use proper terms demands that we let go of “familiarity” for the sake of clarity and dignity.
The equivalent English word is not at all in common/familiar usage in my world, and I have not heard any native Italian speakers suggest it reasonably is "familiar" among people who do not intend to be offensive.
I think this analysis is correct, although it's worth bearing in mind that the use of the inflammatory terms was likely quite deliberate ("You don't seem to be hearing the point I'm making... do you hear me NOW?").
In fact, I'd take the gist of the analysis a step further, and say that even a standard defense along the lines of, "He was critiquing BEHAVIORS, not INDIVIDUALS," is unlikely to satisfy a distinct faction of critics, no matter how winsomely it is presented.
In discussions about matters of sexual orientation, Catholics who are defending the teaching of the Church like to draw a distinction between orientation and behavior, or orientation and identity. But I think that more and more, this is a distinction that is not understood by secular audiences, or is even considered laughable. The rhetorical strategy has diminishing returns.
My compliments to Ed. on doing this analysis. Ed. asks a central question that is spot on: "Is there any phrasing or terminology that would have both conveyed Francis’ point and not been received as offensive?" This is a question that I have been pondering since the original story broke. The short answer, at least for the target of his comments, is no.
Since the initial reporting about the Pope's first use of the term, the focus has been on the almost a priori acceptance that the term is offensive and therefore is unacceptable and should never have be used. However, it struck me as I was watching some clips on social media lauding recent Pride Month parades in which participants in the parade were exhibiting dress and behavior that a large swath of the population and any practicing Catholic should have, at a minimum, find far more offensive, yet it is tolerated and has been normalized. So how does one address the conduct and the political message behind such offensive behavior using non-offensive language? The fact that our society obsesses on the use of offensive words while ignoring and normalizing offensive behavior is indicative of the asymmetry in modern moral philosophy (kind of the antithesis of the sticks and stones cliche.)
One thing that everyone is either ignoring or willfully downplaying, on both sides of this issue is that everybody, on both sides of the issue, knows exactly what the Pope was referring to when he used that term. So in that regarding, it was highly effective in conveying his meaning. Similarly, nobody believes based on his history and conduct that he was referring to all homosexual seminarians or priests. What he was referring to is a particular type of conduct by a subset of homosexual people (an their allies) within the church that wants to openly display and normalize certain coded behavior and a certain agenda that is contrary to the Church's teaching. The advocates of this behavior agenda then create a heads I win, tails you lose set of rules of engagement on the underlying discussion because the opponents are banned from using offensive of language that viscerally describes the offensive behavior or agenda that they are opposing. By whitewashing the language, then the offensive behavior is normalized and made implicitly acceptable before the discussion can ever occur (e.g. the pro-choice lobby is an excellent example of white-washing language to normalize a barbaric procedure.)
At the end of the day, language is used to convey things and ideas between and among people, so it stands to reason that if someone is trying to express a specific thing or idea (how many words do indigenous tribes of the arctic have for snow?) with the intent of conveying why that thing or idea is offensive or unacceptable, it stands to reason that words accurately describing the nature of that thing or concept would take on that offensive connotation.
Similarly, if the Pope used polite language to described what he meant, not only would it eliminate the economy of words to describe a very specific thing or concept, it would create even more opportunity for confusion and mis or reinterpretation that would allow his point to be lost or down played. Similarly, as with the offensive term, it would be attacked in a maximalist way by attributing the description to ALL homosexuals, so that it could then be summarily dismissed as stereotypically bigoted.
Regardless of the Pope's use of an offensive or pejorative term, he was addressing a real issue that needs to be addressed, everybody knows exists, and for some reason do not want to acknowledge. The safest way for the group that is the target of his comments to dismiss it, ignore it, or defend against it, is to go on offense and deliberately respond in a maximalist way to imply he is disparaging everybody who may be homosexual. In this way, they do not have to even acknowledge much less address the elephant in the room. In any conflict, the nature of the terrain you are fighting on can determine the results as much as the quality of your forces. If you allow your enemy to determine the terrain, you have already lost half the battle and make no mistake, this is a battle for the heart and soul of the church.
// One thing that everyone is either ignoring or willfully downplaying, on both sides of this issue is that everybody, on both sides of the issue, knows exactly what the Pope was referring to when he used that term. //
So far as I have seen, with Francis nothing is clear. What his purpose may be in twice in public tossing out a vulgarism, I doubt that anyone but a mind reader might know. He seems to have the mind of a self-regarding, mischievous child, a troublemaker who delights in upsetting people by behaving unpredictably.
I understand your point and don't disagree. What I meant is that I believe, and I may be wrong, that the term has certain offensive connotations related to certain behaviors, that the Pope was aware of it and was using that term to highlight. That being said, you are not wrong about his conduct frequently leaving many people wondering what, if anything, he actually means.
The institutional Church in this age of ubiquitous and unashamed immorality seems unable to dispense with homosexual priests. Roman Catholicism today has a very public sexuality problem, and far too few in the West seem willing if even able to deal with it openly and honestly.
I think his perhaps poor choice of words can be explained by the fact that he is 87 years old. A bigger question is who within the Church is deciding to leak the closed-door comments of the 87 year old wheelchair bound pontiff.
Homosexuality is strongly correlated with having been sexually abused, emotionally abused, neglected, or exposed to homosexual porn as a child. If you want to combat a culture of stuffing things deep down, you have to not ordain gay men. The idea of recommending men for the seminary upon finding out that they have harder problems with chastity (which is the virtue of rightly ordered relationships, not merely the ability to refrain from sex) than most seems quite backwards (which is why Pope Benedict required that they not be admitted). You might as well select your seminarians for their poor grades and bad people skills. It's not their fault, but it means they should seek their purpose elsewhere.
Possibly the Holy Father is throwing shade because homosexuals in the clergy, and in seminaries, tend to produce a highly unwelcoming environment for heterosexual men, and to politically maneuver other gay clerics into various posts. There's also the part where over 80% of the identified clergy sexual abuse victims were post-pubescent boys - i.e., their abusers were homosexuals. I suspect most did not initially join the priesthood for the purpose of finding victims, as there are ways to do that without 7 years of school first.
Every gay man who chooses chastity chooses it heroically, and then fights for it heroically.
The only time I addressed culpability at all was to say that homosexuals are NOT at fault for their disordered desires. I didn't really address relative evil of sins at all, so I'm not sure where your getting your associations from. If it must be said, men with deep-seated desires to rape women should also be barred from the seminary. But I think that is generally accepted as being the case. So I think you are reading into my post things that are not there.
Fighting is a common spiritual analogy. St. Paul talks about the armor of God in Ephesians since we are contending against principalities and powers, about taking every thought captive and fighting with weapons that have the power to demolish strongholds in Corinthians, advises Timothy to fight the good fight of faith. Our Lord uses fighting imagery of home invaders. Jacob wrestled with God. The Psalms are filled with references to warfare, some of them quite brutal. Just a few examples. There is no reason to throw out all of this simply because there are verses where it isn't explicitly used. Sometimes the spiritual life feels like warfare. Sometimes it doesn't. Depends on where you're at.
If you think there should be a preponderance of evidence before making any claims, even in informal comment sections, you don't demonstrate that very well by saying that chastity is not something that can be fought for, in spite of the preponderance of Biblical evidence the other way.
The Catholic Church has to actually apply timeless and true teachings on faith and morals to the real world. That isn't optional, or something we can wait on for several centuries until the scientific speculation has been filtered sufficiently. This results in errors, whenever our understanding of the real world is incorrect. I can see how declaring one's opinion on how to apply it as solid and infallible teaching would cause people trouble, but if they think the Church ought to be right about science, even when the scientists are wrong, they might need to go do some studying about the authority of the Church.
The evidence from 2010 says that nearly 70% of gay men were sexually abused as children, which is well over the population average. The correlations are there. Now, at least 90% of sexual abuse victims do not become homosexuals. It's rather like how psychopaths are considerably more likely to become violent criminals than your average joe, but also they are not particularly likely to become violent criminals (despite what the psychologists thought, before they considered checking outside the prison population). Not enough to cause the problem of itself, but undoubtedly a factor in some way.
"Homosexuality is strongly correlated with having been sexually abused, emotionally abused, neglected, or exposed to homosexual porn as a child. "
No, it is not.
Next time someone complains about the word “disordered” I’ll just ask them if they would prefer a different term.
Perhaps "desordenado" and then pivot to a discussion of sanjuanist mystical theology and the purgation of disordered attachments (which is always in order to make room for God.)
"sanjuanist mystical theology"
--> Once again, you've got me pausing my reading to google something. To paraphrase our esteemed editors, I'm a Bridget reader (in a good way).
I laughed out loud.
There are plenty of ways he could express his viewpoint on this matter without resorting to the kinds of language he seems to be in the habit of employing. It would take careful and deliberate speaking to get his point across, and would have to be a lengthier diatribe on the topic than he probably is used to, but it is possible. I don't think Pope Francis is capable of this kind of articulate, nuanced way of speaking, however.
Something like this is probably better communicated in writing, anyway, through an official Vatican channel, possible as a reinforcement or update to the 2005 guidance. But I don't think there is a willingness on the Pope or many of his close advisors to do this either. Putting something out in writing would surely meet with harsh criticism from the secular world and the liberals/progressives in the Church, which is something that Pope Francis and those close to him try to avoid at all costs. As a result, we're left with little more than second- or third-hand accounts of his views, that can be hand-waved away by the Vatican Press Office as the ramblings of an 87 year old man. It's a tactic that is trying to be used to please both sides. But I think it's likely all we're going to get under this pontificate on this topic.
The official communiques are really for the lawyers. While there is a universal air of reverence for the papacy, you would be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world that is applying or following everything Pope Francis or Benedict passed on to us. Everyone picks and chooses what to emphasize. If you are working to reach Catholic culture you go through other channels in the modern world.
There's a rather unfortunate typo in the paragraph beginning "But in his meetings with Italian bishops and priests in recent weeks," ...
I hope it doesn't speak to what they've been training the AI proofreader with...
Has it been corrected? I can't see it.
As Mr. Eric Blair discussed in his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four", the purpose of Newspeak was to make wrongthink and doublethink literally unspeakable. Control the language, and thus control the thoughts. If there is no "acceptable" word or phrase for Pope Francis to use that would express his honest thoughts on a topic, it seems we're nicely down the road to Fratello Grosso.
Sodomy, homosexual acts, gay lifestyle, homosexual unchastity, same-sex sins against the sixth commandment, the sexual sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance... I heard of one priest who referred to it as "the sin of the people of San Francisco".
People are forgetting that he is using this term in clsoed meetings with bishops and priests. The fact is that this "locker room" talk has been leaked by rats to attack the holy father to the public, and that's not being talked about. Can bishops and priests not keep their mouths shut about what is being talked about in their meetings? Oh, and don't forget the age of Pope Francis. Everyone reading this has a grandpa or great grandpa the same age who used (or used) way worse language than this lol
The leaking of the comments is definitely itself worth commenting upon.
A small part of me has wondered if the reason he feels comfortable using these terms in private conversation, though, is the fact that many people who are in the gay community or “allies” actual embrace offensive terms in some situations, often the flamboyantly gay and their trashy straight friends. (Like gay men who will “jokingly” hit on their straight friends and then be like, “Sorry, I don’t mean it, I’m just such a f**!” and they all laugh like it’s not inappropriate all around.)
Part of me wonders if Francis is actually conversant with people who are on that side of things—a generation of clerics who act like, “Oh, we’ve lived through everything, we can talk very frankly about all kinds of sexual subjects around each other, it’s so natural and normal.”
I wonder a little if the real story here is that the leakers are people who see Francis’s offhanded and casual familiarity with crude subjects as a sign of the company he keeps and their willingness to downplay the seriousness of sins against chastity by being flippant and hyperbolic about it. If that makes sense.
Just a theory.
A FILM TH-
A CHURCH TH--
A Cardinal or two could not keep their mouths shut over what went on in the election of Pope Francis, despite having an oath that led to excommunication if broken. Electronic bugging is common in the Vatican. The only thing that might remain fairly secret is the Pope's current medical status. If the Pope doesn't know this, then he's probably going senile.
Most of the older people that I know either also used bad language when they were younger, or do not use it now. Bad language is not a new problem for the Pope either. It's been reported on before, it just hasn't been used to refer to a "protected class" before and never coated the Catholic media before.
Public figures, holy or not, are fair game for critics.
As with most of the Pope Francis headlines, the remedy is in his own hands and there is nothing anyone else can do to save him from himself.
One obvious remedy is for him to assume that everything he says is being broadcast to the planet, unless he is talking to himself or a tiny group of the most trusted confidants. As the old saying goes, three people can keep a secret, provided that two of them are dead. Though complaining about leaks at this late date is laughable. Remember the multiple "off the record" conversations with Eugenio Scalfari?
Another remedy might be to talk only from a tightly edited script. No off the cuff speeches. But that would be wishing for him to be constitutionally different.
Another obvious remedy might be to act and talk with minimal consistency. Don't moan about a gay lobby inside the Vatican after showing such visible favour to Monsignor Ricca, Father Inzoli, Cardinal McCarrick, Father James Martin, Cardinal Tucho, Archbishop Paglia, Sister Jeannine Gramick, etc. Don't let Tucho produce documents like Fiducia Supplicans.
Yet another obvious remedy. If you are so unhappy about so many homosexuals in seminaries.... Why give Father Jimmy yet more free propaganda?
James Martin, SJ
@JamesMartinSJ
I was honored to meet with Pope Francis for an hour-long conversation today at Casa Santa Marta. With his permission to share this, the Holy Father said he has known many good, holy and celibate seminarians and priests with homosexual tendencies. Once again, he confirmed my ministry with LGBTQ people and showed his openness and love for the LGBTQ community. It was also a great joy to receive his blessing on the 25th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood.
The Scalfari conversations were not "off the record" in the sense of "expected to remain confidential". Scalfari did not make recordings or take notes, but relied on his memory instead, and the stated intention from the start was to publish. His usual method. If I remember right, the Pope generally approved of what he published as accurate to his thoughts and opinions, albeit not word-for-word. Scalfari did not do anything blatantly dishonest there. We could question whether his memory was accurate, biased, or otherwise problematic, and why anyone would use this method at all, but he certainly wasn't leaking.
I really like the part about wishing for the Pope to be constitutionally different... and agree with the rest.
It’s a popular notion, and has been for quite a while, that the best way to lead is to use the language comfortable to the people. It’s particularly a problem in Catholic academia, a comfortable space for Jesuits, among others. This reflects not a pope problem as much as it is a Catholic leadership and academia problem. This is the very good example of why “meeting people with where they are at” in dialogue leads to more confusion and division. In that room the term the Pope used may not have been so much intended as offensive as it was intended as “familiar.” Outside that room it lands as purely divisive and indignant. The most conscientious of leaders lead in language as well. To use proper terms demands that we let go of “familiarity” for the sake of clarity and dignity.
The equivalent English word is not at all in common/familiar usage in my world, and I have not heard any native Italian speakers suggest it reasonably is "familiar" among people who do not intend to be offensive.
I think this analysis is correct, although it's worth bearing in mind that the use of the inflammatory terms was likely quite deliberate ("You don't seem to be hearing the point I'm making... do you hear me NOW?").
In fact, I'd take the gist of the analysis a step further, and say that even a standard defense along the lines of, "He was critiquing BEHAVIORS, not INDIVIDUALS," is unlikely to satisfy a distinct faction of critics, no matter how winsomely it is presented.
In discussions about matters of sexual orientation, Catholics who are defending the teaching of the Church like to draw a distinction between orientation and behavior, or orientation and identity. But I think that more and more, this is a distinction that is not understood by secular audiences, or is even considered laughable. The rhetorical strategy has diminishing returns.
My compliments to Ed. on doing this analysis. Ed. asks a central question that is spot on: "Is there any phrasing or terminology that would have both conveyed Francis’ point and not been received as offensive?" This is a question that I have been pondering since the original story broke. The short answer, at least for the target of his comments, is no.
Since the initial reporting about the Pope's first use of the term, the focus has been on the almost a priori acceptance that the term is offensive and therefore is unacceptable and should never have be used. However, it struck me as I was watching some clips on social media lauding recent Pride Month parades in which participants in the parade were exhibiting dress and behavior that a large swath of the population and any practicing Catholic should have, at a minimum, find far more offensive, yet it is tolerated and has been normalized. So how does one address the conduct and the political message behind such offensive behavior using non-offensive language? The fact that our society obsesses on the use of offensive words while ignoring and normalizing offensive behavior is indicative of the asymmetry in modern moral philosophy (kind of the antithesis of the sticks and stones cliche.)
One thing that everyone is either ignoring or willfully downplaying, on both sides of this issue is that everybody, on both sides of the issue, knows exactly what the Pope was referring to when he used that term. So in that regarding, it was highly effective in conveying his meaning. Similarly, nobody believes based on his history and conduct that he was referring to all homosexual seminarians or priests. What he was referring to is a particular type of conduct by a subset of homosexual people (an their allies) within the church that wants to openly display and normalize certain coded behavior and a certain agenda that is contrary to the Church's teaching. The advocates of this behavior agenda then create a heads I win, tails you lose set of rules of engagement on the underlying discussion because the opponents are banned from using offensive of language that viscerally describes the offensive behavior or agenda that they are opposing. By whitewashing the language, then the offensive behavior is normalized and made implicitly acceptable before the discussion can ever occur (e.g. the pro-choice lobby is an excellent example of white-washing language to normalize a barbaric procedure.)
At the end of the day, language is used to convey things and ideas between and among people, so it stands to reason that if someone is trying to express a specific thing or idea (how many words do indigenous tribes of the arctic have for snow?) with the intent of conveying why that thing or idea is offensive or unacceptable, it stands to reason that words accurately describing the nature of that thing or concept would take on that offensive connotation.
Similarly, if the Pope used polite language to described what he meant, not only would it eliminate the economy of words to describe a very specific thing or concept, it would create even more opportunity for confusion and mis or reinterpretation that would allow his point to be lost or down played. Similarly, as with the offensive term, it would be attacked in a maximalist way by attributing the description to ALL homosexuals, so that it could then be summarily dismissed as stereotypically bigoted.
Regardless of the Pope's use of an offensive or pejorative term, he was addressing a real issue that needs to be addressed, everybody knows exists, and for some reason do not want to acknowledge. The safest way for the group that is the target of his comments to dismiss it, ignore it, or defend against it, is to go on offense and deliberately respond in a maximalist way to imply he is disparaging everybody who may be homosexual. In this way, they do not have to even acknowledge much less address the elephant in the room. In any conflict, the nature of the terrain you are fighting on can determine the results as much as the quality of your forces. If you allow your enemy to determine the terrain, you have already lost half the battle and make no mistake, this is a battle for the heart and soul of the church.
I wish there were a way to pin your comment at the top.
// One thing that everyone is either ignoring or willfully downplaying, on both sides of this issue is that everybody, on both sides of the issue, knows exactly what the Pope was referring to when he used that term. //
So far as I have seen, with Francis nothing is clear. What his purpose may be in twice in public tossing out a vulgarism, I doubt that anyone but a mind reader might know. He seems to have the mind of a self-regarding, mischievous child, a troublemaker who delights in upsetting people by behaving unpredictably.
I understand your point and don't disagree. What I meant is that I believe, and I may be wrong, that the term has certain offensive connotations related to certain behaviors, that the Pope was aware of it and was using that term to highlight. That being said, you are not wrong about his conduct frequently leaving many people wondering what, if anything, he actually means.
The institutional Church in this age of ubiquitous and unashamed immorality seems unable to dispense with homosexual priests. Roman Catholicism today has a very public sexuality problem, and far too few in the West seem willing if even able to deal with it openly and honestly.
I think his perhaps poor choice of words can be explained by the fact that he is 87 years old. A bigger question is who within the Church is deciding to leak the closed-door comments of the 87 year old wheelchair bound pontiff.
“Why does the Church not condone homosexual acts? well tbh it’s pretty gay ngl” -Pope Francis (in a parallel timeline)
I guess we’re bringing back the term “Mohammedan” next