Not only did Pride return to Rome this year, (first one post COVID), with a super parade and huge crowds but there was a fabulous appropriation of Pope Francis’ recent insult regarding “frociaggine” (pronounced “fro-chia-geen-eh”) or faggotry in the seminaries.
Perhaps “gayness” would be a kinder translation.
See: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=64451
(Duh. Without faggotry in the seminary there would only be about 1/4 of the priests world-wide and I dare say only about 10% of those in the Vatican would be left.)
Italian LGBTQs reclaimed the word, “Frociaggine” as we often do with insults, as a badge of honor and pride. They are fighting for their rights in Italy under a repressive Prime Minister Meloni (translated in the English subtitles as "melons"!!! Not to be confused with the still hunky actor, Christopher Meloni.)
The Far Right is becoming a danger in many countries besides the USA.
We need do the same here under our repressive Congress and Supreme Court and the unthinkable DJT as president.
4 comments:
I love all the defiance! The "liberal" Pope showed his true colours and hypocrisy -- no surprise except perhaps to the naive.
I'm neither Italian nor Catholic but definitely gay, and I'm inclined to cut the Pope some slack here. He's a good man but an old man - and he may have said it lightly, with a smile, in a humorous way. And Italian is not his native language.
I also can't judge the precise degree of offensiveness in Italian. There is an interesting conversation at Language Log about this very point: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=64451
And no doubt there is a lot of fairy dust blowing through those seminaries, as you yourself just said. When M.P. was married and raising 4 kids, he DRE in his parish for several years, friends with several priests here in Texas, and it was quite an eye-opening experience, he says.
(The shame is not in being gay, but in breaking a sacred vow, and living a lie.)
Very interesting to see the lively scenes of Rome Pride, thanks for posting the vids. The guy in the pink shirt and cap would be very sexy, if not for all them fro-cah-jeen-ay earrings and such.
But I'm an old man.
The truth will out. So much for an enlightened pope. Power!
Yes, Russ, I saw the post in Language Log before posting and I've edited my post with the link. When I was involved with Dignity, the Catholic LGBTQ group, I knew several gay priests, some of whom had partners, some of whom had been "laicised", some of whom were celibate.
I'm not sure if Francis was joking or trying to be cool with the vernacular, but after having blessed gay couples a while back, this did come as a slap in face...and you know how often we have been slapped in the face by Popes. Not cool.
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