Vatican Walks Back Pope Francis’s Canonization of Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness
The Vatican said the pope’s statements in favor of civil unions for gay couples did not change church doctrine. — The New York Times
ROME — While the Vatican has confirmed the pope’s remarks concerning the canonization of Jonathan Van Ness (the popular co-host of Netflix’s Queer Eye), the magisterium has reiterated that Francis’s comments do not in any way change church doctrine regarding the canonization of self-described “non-binary fairies.”
In the explosive recent interview, Pope Francis emphasized his view that gay people are “children of God,” before adding, “especially Jonathan Van Ness, from Queer Eye on Netflix. I’d like to canonize him as a saint.”
The Vatican Secretary of State was quick to send out explanatory notes to the church body’s various nuncios in an effort to temper the reaction to the pope’s comments, which depart dramatically from the policies espoused by his predecessors. “The Holy Father is just a really big fan of the show, that’s all” explained Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “he has been since the original Queer Eye aired on the Bravo Network back in the early 2000s.”
In the explanatory note, the Vatican claims that the pope’s comments had been taken out of context. Evidently the quote had been ripped from an interview the holy father had participated in on Van Ness’s podcast, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness. (Francis had met Van Ness in Los Angeles while on a papal antiquing tour in the city’s Silver Lake district).
The note also mentions that the Vatican’s canonization policy has not changed, and that at least one verified miracle obtained through invocation after beatification must occur before the cause for canonization may be introduced. However, according to the Vatican’s Grindr profile, the pope does have the power to confer ‘extraordinary canonization’, which Pope Francis appears to have alluded to in remarking on the “miraculous sheen that Van Ness is able to maintain in his hair despite shunning phosphate-heavy products.”
According to the Vatican, Pope Francis was simply caught in a moment of hyperbole — “instances which have been occurring more and more often lately” remarked Parolin in the letter, which was replete with evident bitterness of this kind, adding that “perhaps the holy father is getting a bit too big for his britches or whatever it is he wears under those bedazzled capes” — and that the pope did not seriously intend to canonize the television personality-slash-grooming expert.
Cardinal Parolin insisted that the pope’s comments were not, in any way, meant to upset generations of church doctrine. He urged the Catholic flock to take comfort in the fact that the holy father was at this moment finishing his vesper prayers, after which he would return to the papal suite to rest and watch one of Netflix’s more traditional, heterosexual offerings before bed tonight, perhaps something like Outerbanks, or Footloose starring Kevin Bacon.
Van Ness responded to a request for comment through a spokesperson, asking, “is canonization some kind of euphemism?”
Pope Francis could not be reached for comment.
