THE VATICAN: Leaks from a Vatican document to be published next week indicate it will ban men "who practise homosexuality, show profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture" from entering Catholic seminaries.
It also instructs that young men dealing with homosexual tendencies must have overcome those for at least three years before they can be ordained deacons of the Catholic Church. A man is ordained deacon approximately two years before becoming a priest.
Homosexuals, it says, "find themselves, in fact, in a situation that gravely obstructs a right way of relating with men and women. The negative consequences that may derive from the ordination of persons with profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies are by no means to by ignored."
It repeats the teaching that homosexual acts are "grave sins" and continued that "tradition has constantly considered them to be intrinsically immoral and contrary to natural law".
Although differentiating between homosexual acts and tendencies, it states "profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies. . . are also objectively disordered."
It continues that where such tendencies "may be simply the expression of a transitory problem, such as for example an adolescence not yet complete", then those "must be overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate".
The document, from the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, is to be published next Tuesday.
Entitled Instruction Concerning the Criteria of Vocational Discernment Regarding Persons with Homosexual Tendencies, Considering Their Admission to Seminary and to Holy Orders, it was signed by Pope Benedict on August 31st last. It was signed by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, on November 4th.
The document states of itself that "it contains norms regarding a particular question, made more urgent by the present situation, that is that of the admission or non-admission to the seminary and Holy Orders of candidates who have profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies".
It points out that "the desire alone to become a priest is not sufficient and there is no right to receive ordination".
Rather, "it is the duty of the church . . . to discern the qualification of he who wishes to enter the seminary, to accompany him during his years of formation and to call him to Holy Orders, if he be judged to be in possession of the requisite qualities".
It states that "the call to Orders is the personal responsibility of the bishop or the major superior" who "before admitting a candidate to ordination, must reach a morally certain judgment on their quality. In the case of a serious doubt in this respect, they must not admit him to ordination."
The spiritual director "has the obligation to assess all the qualities of the personality and to ascertain that the candidate does not present sexual troubles incompatible with the priesthood.
"If a candidate practises homosexuality or presents profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director, like his confessor, must dissuade him, in conscience, from proceeding towards ordination."
It would also be "gravely dishonest if a candidate were to hide his own homosexuality to enter, notwithstanding everything, to ordination".
The full document is available on the www.cwnews.com website.