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Vatican ban on gay Seminarians
22.11.2005- The Vatican is toughening its stand
against gay candidates for the priesthood, specifying in a new document
that even men with "transitory" homosexual tendencies must overcome their
urges for at least three years before entering the clergy.
A long-awaited "Instruction," due to be released next
week, was posted Tuesday on the Internet by the Italian Catholic news
agency Adista. A church official who has read the document confirmed its
authenticity; he asked that his name not be used because the piece has not
been published by the Vatican.
Conservative Roman Catholics who have decried the "gay
subculture" in seminaries will likely applaud the policy, because it
clarifies what the Vatican expects of seminarians and their
administrators.
Critics of the policy warned that, if enforced, it will
likely result in seminarians lying about their orientation and will
decrease the already dwindling number of priests in the United States.
Estimates of the percentage of gays in U.S. seminaries and the priesthood
range from 25 percent to 50 percent, according to a research review by the
Rev. Donald Cozzens, an author of "The Changing Face of the Priesthood."
The document from the Vatican's Congregation for
Catholic Education says the church deeply respects homosexuals. But it
also says it "cannot admit to the seminary and the sacred orders those who
practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or
support so-called gay culture."
"Those people find themselves, in fact, in a situation
that presents a grave obstacle to a correct relationship with men and
women. One cannot ignore the negative consequences that can stem from the
ordination of people with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies," it said.
"If instead it is a case of homosexual tendencies that
are merely the expression of a transitory problem, for example as in the
case of an unfinished adolescence, they must however have been clearly
overcome for at least three years before ordination as a deacon."
For many gay-rights activists, the Vatican's distinction
between deep-rooted and "transitory" homosexuality is without basis.
"For decades now, the scientific and medical community
have said that sexual orientation is an immutable trait, what some of us
might call a gift from God," said Harry Knox, director of the religion and
faith program at the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
"This new policy causes candidates for the priesthood to
be deceptive, and that should not be what the church should be about," he
said.
Vatican prohibitions on sexually active gays becoming
priests are not new, and a 1961 document says homosexuals should be barred
from the priesthood. But the issue came to the fore in 2002, at the height
of the clergy sex abuse scandal in the United States.
The new document underlines that long-standing
traditions and church teaching consider homosexual acts "grave sins" and
also intrinsically immoral and contrary to natural law.
The Instruction is only five pages long, including
footnotes. It was signed by the prefect and secretary of the congregation
on Nov. 4, and says it was approved by Pope Benedict XVI on Aug. 31.
The text makes no reference to current priests; it's
directed instead to people entering seminaries and preparing for
ordination. Its title reads, "Regarding the criteria of vocational
discernment regarding people with homosexual tendencies in view of their
admission to the seminary and to sacred orders."
The Vatican has often visited the issue of
homosexuality, reflecting an unbending theological opposition but also an
acknowledgment that discrimination based on sexual preference is not
justified.
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