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Pope Francis repeated an anti-gay slur during a meeting with priests in Rome on Tuesday, Italian news outlets reported, the same offensive term he was accused of using two weeks ago<\/a>. The Vatican, in summarizing the gathering, said only that the pontiff had cautioned about admitting gay men into Roman Catholic seminaries.<\/p>\n The Vatican did not address the reports by two of the most prominent news agencies in Italy, ANSA<\/a> and Adnkronos<\/a>, that he had again used the word \u201cfrociaggine,\u201d an offensive Italian slang term referring to gay men. The reports cited anonymous sources they said had been present at the meeting.<\/p>\n The New York Times could not independently verify the pope\u2019s use of the term. A spokesperson for the Vatican declined to comment late on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The pope was accused of using the same term last month<\/a> at a private meeting with Italian bishops, according to several people present at the meeting who spoke anonymously to the Italian news media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Those reports ignited widespread backlash and drew an apology from the pope, issued through the director of the Holy See\u2019s press office, who said: \u201cThe pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term, reported by others.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Vatican News, the Holy See\u2019s online news site, Tuesday\u2019s meeting took place at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. There, it said in its summary, the pope \u201cspoke about the danger of ideologies in the church\u201d and reiterated that while the church should welcome people \u201cwith homosexual tendencies,\u201d it should exercise \u201cprudence\u201d in admitting them into seminaries.<\/p>\n The Vatican said the closed-door meeting also addressed \u201cpastoral\u201d and \u201ccurrent\u201d themes, like substance abuse, low voter turnout in elections and the wars in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere.<\/p>\n Francis has been widely credited with making moves to welcome the L.G.B.T.Q. community in the Roman Catholic Church, delivering a mostly inclusive message and deciding to allow priests to bless same-sex couples.<\/p>\n But the previous reports about the pope\u2019s use of the homophobic slur upset and alienated some members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, within and outside the church.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After the reports in May, a gay priest wrote in America magazine<\/a>, a Jesuit publication, that he was \u201cshocked and saddened\u201d by the remarks and that \u201cwe need more than an apology for Pope Francis\u2019 homophobic slur.\u201d<\/p>\n The Italian politician Alessandro Zan, who is gay and a prominent champion for the L.G.B.T.Q. community, wrote on social media<\/a> then: \u201cThere is not too much \u2018frociaggine\u2019. There are too many homophobes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n