Vatican: Italian Gays Can Be Priests If They’re Celibate

The New York Times reports:

The Vatican has approved new guidelines for Italy that say that an applicant for the seminary cannot be rejected simply because he is gay, as long as he remains celibate. The guidelines say that seminary directors should consider sexual orientation as only one aspect of a candidate’s personality.

They do not change the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that “homosexual tendencies” are “intrinsically disordered,” and that men with “deep-seated” gay tendencies should not become priests. But they clarify that if a candidate remains chaste, his sexual orientation should not disqualify him from entering the priesthood.

The Catholic church has struggled for years with the contradiction that the priesthood has long been a refuge for gay men, while church teaching rejects same-sex relations.

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