Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Feb 27, 2007 / 10:11 am
The rector of the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in the Dominican Republic, Father Victor Masalles, said this week both married life and the priesthood require an ordered ability to love and therefore the Church cannot accept candidates for the priesthood who display deep-seated homosexual tendencies.
In an interview on the Catholic television channel “Televida,” Father Masalles warned, “When a priest has homosexual tendencies and he is in charge of a youth group, if he is not clear about his affectivity and does not have it ordered he is going to get into trouble and is going to cause harm.”
Father Masalles noted that even with ordered affectivity, “a married man has to struggle…how much more then in the life of the celibate in which stability and clarity should be shown, how much more then in a priest with a candidate.”
“Christianity will always be attacked, it will always be accused of homophobia, of discrimination,” he stressed. Nevertheless, he added, “We cannot allow a candidate who promotes the gay culture to become a priest.”