Pope Francis recently made the news by, apparently, acknowledging the existence of a “gay lobby” at the Vatican.
What did he say? What did he mean? And what will he do in the future?
Here are 10 things to know and share . . .
1. What did Pope Francis say?
According to press reports, Pope Francis recently said:
“In the Curia there are holy people, truly, there are holy people. But there’s also a current of corruption – there’s that, too, it’s true…. The ‘gay lobby’ is spoken of, and it’s true, that’s there… we need to see what we can do.”
2. Where and when did he say this?
According to Rocco Palmo:
The comments were purportedly made during an hourlong audience the Pope held last Thursday with the Religious Confederation of Latin America and the Caribbean (CLAR).
An unsigned “exclusive, brief synthesis” of the encounter – featuring a series of pull-quotes, but not a full transcript – was apparently provided to and subsequently published on Sunday afternoon by Reflexión y Liberación, a church-focused Chilean website with sympathies toward liberation theology.
These thus were not public remarks, which raises a question about their authenticity.
3. Did he really say it?
Hello Jimmy,
I think the more problematic part of the interview “report” was his derisive comment about rosaries being offered up for him. If that was his attitude about prayer offered up for him, where does that leave me praying for him?
And this “derisive comment” was what? (And please source it.)
Hello Bill,
Sorry for the delay in answering. On the off chance you are still around, the quote is
“An anecdote, just to illustrate this, it is not to laugh at it, I took it with respect, but it concerns me; when I was elected, I received a letter from one of these groups, and they said: “Your Holiness, we offer you this spiritual treasure: 3,525 rosaries.” Why don’t they say, ‘we pray for you, we ask…’, but this thing of counting… And these groups return to practices and to disciplines that I lived through – not you, because you are not old – to disciplines, to things that in that moment took place, but not now, they do not exist today…”
This is from the translation on the rorate caeli website: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/06/pope-to-latin-american-religious-full.html. Granted, not a website in love with Pope Francis, but apparently accurate in this case nonetheless. A disappointingly airy dismissal of simple people’s prayers, apparently because they come in an old form.