Pope Francis said there is “an air of faggotry” inside the Vatican just weeks after he had to apologise for using the homophobic term, according to leaks from the Holy See.

The pontiff used the offensive term during a closed door meeting with priests in Rome on Tuesday, sources told Ansa, Italy’s national news agency.

“In the Vatican there is an air of faggotry,” he said, using a slang word, “frociaggine”, which is regarded as derogatory in Italian.

It is an open secret that many Catholic priests are gay but the issue is rarely addressed publicly and certainly not in such direct language.

Francis reportedly said that if a young man wanting to become a seminarian, or trainee priest, is homosexual then it would be better for him to choose a different career.

Apology in May

The Pope caused offence last month when he first referred to “faggotry”, saying too many young seminarians were gay.

The Vatican had to issue an apology, saying the Pope “never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms” and that he “apologises to those who felt offended.”

There were claims that the Pope, whose mother tongue is Spanish, had not appreciated how offensive the term is considered to be.

That defence has now been thrown into question by his repetition of the word.

It is not clear who leaked the Pope’s controversial remarks to the Italian press. It may have been a conservative out to hurt the Argentinian pontiff, or it could just be a priest - or priests - who are shocked and unhappy with his choice of language, a Vatican expert said.

Robert Mickens, a decades-long observer of the Catholic Church, said of the Pope: “He famously said ‘Who am I to judge?’ in relation to gays in the Catholic Church and yet he is using this word ‘frociaggine’.

“There are gay priests who struggle with their sexuality and this is very hurtful to them.”

‘Priests talk a lot’

On Wednesday, Francis also said that priests should keep their homilies short and speak for a maximum of eight minutes to prevent members of the congregation from nodding off.

The homily, a message delivered by a celebrant following a Bible reading, “must be short: an image, a thought, a feeling”, the Pope said during his weekly audience.

It should not last longer than eight minutes “because after that time attention is lost and people fall asleep, and they are right,” said the 87-year-old pontiff.

“Priests sometimes talk a lot and you don’t understand what they are talking about.”