Washington D.C., Nov 29, 2005 / 22:00 pm
American Bishops openly welcomed the final release of the document from the Congregation of Catholic Education on the admittance of homosexuals into Catholic Seminaries.
“A timely” document said Bishop William Skylstad , President of the U.S Bishops Conference.
Bishop Skylstad said that, in the Instruction, “the Congregation for Catholic Education is exercising a Christian realism about what is expected in candidates for the priesthood. This realism understands the challenges of our time.”
Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput published a column on this new document, focusing on the discernment of the Church regarding candidates to the priesthood.
“The Church seeks to ordain only those men who can joyfully accept Catholic teaching on human sexuality,” he said.
“Living the vocation of a genuinely holy priesthood can only be accomplished by a man who possesses a firm Catholic spiritual foundation, and who is supported in his maturity by the Church”.
“At the same time, it is neither unjust nor discriminatory for the Church to insist that candidates for the priesthood meet the demands of the ordained ministry,” he concluded.
The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy echoed the bishops commentary stating that “We do not consider this a matter of discrimination since as the document itself affirms in “the mere desire to become a priest is not sufficient and there is no right to receive sacred Ordination.”
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“Sexual misconduct and immoral behavior certainly do not belong in seminarians any more than it belongs in the priesthood, the diaconate or the episcopacy” the statement concluded.