Homosexuality and admission to the priesthood. (News in Brief: Vatican).

Vatican City--Roman officials have prepared a draft document containing directives against the admission of homosexuals to the priesthood. Since the Church considers the homosexual orientation to be "objectively disordered", such people should not be admitted to the seminary or ordained. The issue of excluding homosexuals from the priesthood has been quietly considered at the Vatican for some years. The current American sexual scandals in the priestly ranks finally brought the issue to the forefront.

In May 2002, the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, in response to a query by a bishop, said that men who are homosexuals, or have homosexual tendencies, should not be ordained priests. Ordaining such candidates to the priesthood would be imprudent and "very risky," said a letter from Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, Prefect of the Congregation. This letter has now been published in the Congregation's bulletin of December 2002.

United States--Meanwhile, the U.S.Bishops' Committee on Priestly Formation has issued a memorandum to rectors and seminary faculty members, with a new emphasis on screening "for men who are able to live chaste celibacy." The report states that the large majority of the recent cases of sexual abuse were committed by clerics who attended seminaries in the middle part of the twentieth century.

The new chairman of the committee, Bishop John Nienstedt of New Ulm, Minn., said that the new edition of the bishops' Program for Priestly Formation "will need to deal directly with the acceptance or nonacceptance of priesthood candidates who admit a homosexual orientation." At a minimum, the candidate would have to meet the following criteria:

* he must give internal consent to the church's teaching that a homosexual inclination is disordered;

* he cannot espouse a 'gay' identity;

* he must be prepared to admit that a celibate commitment means renouncing a wife and children (America, Oct. 21, 28/02.)