Gay priests must prove chastity

2005-10-07 16:55

Vatican City - An upcoming Vatican document on gays and the priesthood says men who demonstrate homosexual tendencies can't become priests unless they can show they have lived chastely for at least three years, an Italian newspaper reported on Friday.

Men who publicly show their homosexuality and those who reveal an attraction to the homosexual lifestyle and culture should also be refused admission to the priesthood, the document said according to daily Corriere della Sera.

The report, by the newspaper's chief Vatican correspondent, Luigi Accattoli, cited sources who spoke to him about the document, which is an "instruction" from the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education. The Italian newsweekly Panorama said in its Friday editions that Pope Benedict XVI had approved the document over the summer.

Vatican mum on document

A Vatican official declined to comment on the reports on Friday, saying only that the document would be published very soon.

Several Vatican documents and letters over the years have said gays or men with homosexual tendencies should not be ordained, regardless of whether they can remain celibate.

The key one is a February 2 1961, document, an "Instruction on the Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders", which made clear homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood.

"(Advancement) to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers," said the document from the then-Vatican's Congregation for Religious.

Subject of long debate

Vatican teaching holds that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered". The Church, however, says homosexuals should be treated with compassion and dignity.

The new document has been in the works for at least three years. The issue, though, has long been a subject of debate at the Vatican. It received renewed attention after the Unite States church sex abuse scandal that erupted in 2002.

A study commissioned by US bishops after the scandal broke by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice found most abuse victims since 1950 were adolescent boys. Experts on sex offenders said homosexuals are no more likely than heterosexuals to molest young people, but that did not stifle questions about homosexual seminarians.

- AP