Just days after telling Italian bishops that homosexuals should not be admitted to seminary training, Pope Francis reportedly sent a message of sympathy to a homosexual man who protested after he was rejected.
Lorenzo Caruso wrote to the Pontiff after his application was turned down, complaining that the policy reflected “a toxic and elective clericalism.” In a written response—made public by the daily Il Messagero—Pope Francis replied: “You know that clericalism is a plague? It’s an ugly ‘worldliness’ and as a great theologian said, ‘worldliness is the worst that can happen to the Church, even worse than the era of concubinary popes.”
The Pope encouraged Caruso to “go forward with your vocation.”