Holy See to publish document on admittance of homosexuals to seminaries

Rome, Italy, Aug 30, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The Congregation for Catholic Education, headed by Cardinal Zenon Grockolewski, will publish a document clarifying the Church’s policy on the admittance of persons with homosexual orientations to seminaries.

According to sources at the Vatican, the document could be released next month and will prohibit seminaries from accepting candidates with a homosexual orientation.

The new document would do away with the “de facto” policy adhered to in some seminaries, especially in the United States and central Europe, which only require that the candidate be capable of living celibacy, without distinguishing between normal candidates and those with a homosexual orientation.

The document will point out that because seminarians live and study in close proximity with one another, it would be an act of injustice both toward the person with a homosexual orientation and toward normal seminarians to allow such an individual to enter the seminary.  While the text will be pastoral in nature, it will be based “on the clear teaching of the Church on this issue (of homosexuality) and on recent events in the Church,” sources told CNA.

Although the official date of its publication has not been announced, the document could be released shortly before the Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Archbishop J. Michael Miller, initiates apostolic visitations of 220 seminaries in the United States in mid-September.