Rome, 31st August 2005 (CNA)
- 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.
