Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
Religion
Vatican to revise gay priest rule soon
Associated Press
Published October 8, 2005
VATICAN CITY - A Vatican document expected to be made public soon stops short of a sweeping ban on homosexuals entering the priesthood, allowing those who have lived chastely for three years to be candidates for the clergy, the Associated Press reported Friday, citing an unnamed senior Vatican official.
The document, in the works for at least three years, updates Vatican policy, which had held that gays or men with homosexual tendencies should not be ordained, regardless of whether they can remain celibate.
The new document permits candidates who have lived a chaste life for at least three years before their admission to a seminary, said the senior official.
The official confirmed a report in leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Friday listing the reasons for not admitting gay candidates, which include men who publicly show their homosexuality and those who reveal an attraction to what the document described as the gay lifestyle.
The report, by the newspaper's chief Vatican correspondent, Luigi Accattoli, cited sources speaking to him about the document from the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education.
In a similar report Friday, the National Catholic Reporter said seminary officials will be asked to exercise "prudential judgment."
The senior official told the Associated Press, "Anyone who knows Catholic teaching should not be surprised by what the document says."
A key document from 1961, an "Instruction on the Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders," made clear that homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood.
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered." The church, however, says homosexuals should be treated with compassion and dignity.
The issue has long been a subject of debate at the Vatican. It received renewed attention after the U.S. church sex-abuse scandal that erupted in 2002.
[Last modified October 8, 2005, 01:27:10]
Share your thoughts on this story
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Email editor
