An influential Vatican department has said homosexuals and "men with gay tendencies" should not be ordained as priests.
The view was contested by some priests who say banning gays could do the Church more harm than good and think homosexual priests should be allowed as long as they obey the same vows of celibacy as their heterosexual colleagues.
The negative opinion was in a letter published in the latest bulletin of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship as an official response to a bishop's question about whether gay men should be ordained.
"The ordination...of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and from a pastoral point of view it is very risky," said Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez.
"Therefore a homosexual person or a person with homosexual tendencies is not qualified to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders," he said.
While the opinion of Cardinal Medina Estevez, who retired in October, was not definitive, it could influence a future Vatican document on homosexuals in the clergy.