Vatican to toughen rules on homosexuals with ban on gay men joining priesthood
Barbara McMahon in Rome
Friday September 23, 2005
Guardian
The Vatican is to ban gay men from becoming Roman Catholic priests, even if they are celibate. The stricter rules will apply only to candidates for the priesthood, not to those already ordained.
The proposed move, a clear shift away from earlier church policy of condemning homosexual acts but not homosexual orientation, is being seen as another example of the hardline approach of the deeply conservative new Pope, Benedict XVI.
The ruling is still being worked on, but leaks from a Vatican official who has seen the document suggest that more emphasis than ever will be put on determining the sexual orientation of candidates in seminaries. Promises of chastity by young gay men hoping to lead religious lives will no longer suffice.
Homosexuality in the priesthood is one of the most sensitive issues facing the church and the proposed edict has already prompted controversy among Catholics.
Some church organisations have said that the move is necessary to restore credibility after a wave of damaging sex scandals, particularly in America, in recent years. Critics say the new rules will merely encourage candidates for the priesthood to lie about their sexual orientation and that it will worsen the church's shortage of clergy. It has been suggested that some gay priests may feel forced to leave.
Until now the Catholic Church has not condemned homosexuality outright. Its teachings distinguish between homosexual tendencies and homosexual acts which are "intrinsically disordered". A policy from 1961 recommends against ordaining anyone who has "perverse inclinations to homosexuality or pederasty" but many seminaries since have decided on cases individually, supporting candidates who considered themselves homosexual but promised to live celibate lives.
This will no longer be possible under the new ruling. The Vatican official, who spoke to the New York Times, said the document calls for barring even non-practising gays because of what he described as the specific temptations of seminaries.
"The difference is in the special atmosphere of the seminary," he told the newspaper. "In the seminary you are surrounded by males, not females."
The church official said that there may be room for amending the policy. He said some rare cases in which a would-be priest was confused about his sexuality may be accepted if the church was convinced he could make an effective and chaste priest. The official acknowledged that the ruling would be controversial but said the church was entitled to make its own decisions about who is allowed to be a priest.
"Being a priest is not a right," he said. "The Catholic Church never ordains anyone on the conception of human rights."
The document has been worked on for years by John Paul II, who died in April, along with his then right-hand man Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Its issue in the first year of Pope Benedict's new papacy signifies his expressed desire to maintain the same conservative course.
In 1986 Cardinal Ratzinger said it was an "unfounded and demeaning assumption" that homosexuals could not control their behaviour, but last spring he gave a clue to Catholicism's tougher stance when he warned of the need to "purify" the church in the wake of damaging sex scandals in the priesthood.
The document, which has yet to be signed by the new Pope and which is still undergoing last-minute adjustments, is expected to be made public within the next two months.
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