At Rome’s Satisfaction celebration, bare-chested males in pink angel wings danced to Abba songs, girls wrapped in rainbow flags kissed, and shimmering drag queens waved from parade floats. After which there was Pope Francis.
The pontiff’s picture was in all places. On cardboard cutouts adorned with flower necklaces, on glittery banners, on stickers. Romans got here to the Satisfaction parade on Saturday dressed like Francis, carrying papal hats and T-shirts that learn, “There’s by no means an excessive amount of frociaggine,” a reference to an offensive slur in opposition to homosexual males that the pope has been accused of utilizing twice in current weeks.
The slur “is the slogan of the 2024 Satisfaction,” stated Martina Lorina, 28, an actress who was holding up a banner bearing the phrase.
After Italian media reported that Pope Francis used the slur at a gathering with monks to complain that there was an excessive amount of “gayness” within the church, the Vatican apologized.
However Rome’s Satisfaction attendees took a unique tack to answer the insult: They made it their very own. Satisfaction members symbolically invited the pope and his slur to the social gathering, utilizing a longtime tactic of the L.G.B.T.Q. neighborhood to show insults into phrases of satisfaction.
“Let’s make him really feel how stunning gayness is,” a participant shouted within the crowd as males dressed as unicorns sang a Britney Spears track and kids held palms with their two moms, their faces lined in glittery rainbows.
Daniele Lacitignola, 34, who’s Christian and homosexual, was carrying a cardboard cutout of Francis. He stated that although the pope’s current phrase selection would possibly convey that “homosexual persons are not welcome within the church, he’s at all times welcome to Satisfaction.”
“Francy you might be welcome in our parish,” a banner learn.
“Let me pose along with his holiness,” Alessio Sposato, 31, in a tank prime and cowboy hat, stated as he took {a photograph} with a cardboard cutout of Francis.
Emiliano Sisolfi, 22, a director, carried a banner with {a photograph} of Francis along with his thumb up and one other utilization of the slur. Mr. Sisolfi stated he printed the insult in rainbow letters to neutralize it.
“If I chortle concerning the phrase,” he stated, “they don’t have any extra phrases to offend us.”
Giacomo Canarezza, 31, stated that even when the slur was derogatory, “If I take possession of the phrase, I can use it as a marker of my identification.”
He added, “It makes you immune from any insult.”
Banners all through the parade related the slur with expressions of satisfaction and pleasure. A Satisfaction attendee, with a pink glowing beard, wore a papal hat as he danced to “Greased Lightnin’” on prime of a parade float, and others distributed stickers with doctored pictures of Francis in a furry pink scarf or in pink sun shades.
However behind the jokes and the fanfare, some Romans have expressed considerations that the pope’s phrases may additional marginalize the L.G.B.T.Q. neighborhood in a rustic that along with Hungary, the Czech Republic and a handful of others is among the many solely European ones that haven’t legalized same-sex marriage.
Final 12 months, the right-wing authorities of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ordered Italian mayors to obey a courtroom ruling and cease certifying overseas beginning certificates of kids born overseas to Italian same-sex {couples} by surrogacy, which is illegitimate in Italy.
“Many in Italy take heed to the pope and church, and this could harm households who’ve homosexual kids,” stated Basilio Petruzza, 33.
A 20-year-old artist who goes by the title Dolly Deville stated he ordered a papal gown on-line a number of days in the past to put on at Satisfaction. He held a banner with a hand-drawn portrait of Francis, and stated the pope’s phrases had precipitated him ache.
“He shouldn’t have dared to say this phrase,” stated his boyfriend, Edoardo Camillucci. “Particularly as a straight holy man.”
