A forthcoming Vatican document on homosexuals in seminaries will not demand an absolute ban, a senior Vatican official told NCR Oct. 7, but will insist that seminary officials exercise "prudential judgment" that gay candidates should not be admitted in three cases.
Those three cases are:
- If candidates have not demonstrated a capacity to live celibate lives for at least three years;
- If they are part of a "gay culture," for example, attending gay pride rallies (a point, the official said, which applies both to professors at seminaries as well as students);
- If their homosexual orientation is sufficiently "strong, permanent and univocal" as to make an all-male environment a risk.
In any case, the Vatican official said, whether or not these criteria exclude a particular candidate is a judgment that must be made in the context of individual spiritual direction, rather than by applying a rigid litmus test.
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The pope gave his final approval, this official said, in a Sept. 15 audience at Castel Gandolfo with Archbishop William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Archbishop Angelo Amato, the secretary of that office; and Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
The document will likely be approved in forma specifica, the official said, which means that although it is a document of the Congregation for Catholic Education, the pope has nevertheless imparted his personal authority to it.
"The pope wants to sound an alarm bell," the official said, "in part because of perceptions that some American seminaries are predominantly gay."
One can hope, as well, that the document acknowedges the problems that have arisen within the Church itself, among some thinkers and teachers, of twisting the Church’s teaching on homosexuality to their own agenda.
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