UPDATE: Catholic Culture reported that the President of the Italian Bishops’ Episcopal Commission for the Clergy and Consecrated Life and the Italian Bishops’ newspaper have denied media reports that newly approved norms for the formation of Italian seminarians allow for the admission of gay men who are celibate to seminaries.
It is worthy to note that the Italian “revised national norms” cited and linked to in the article has apparently been removed. We are providing a link to the Italian bishops’ document here. In lieu of the English version of the document, which is no longer available at the link in the Catholic Culture article, we are providing an AI translation of the text here.
While paragraph 44 of the Italian bishops’ document does reiterate several points of prior Church teaching regarding the admittance of homosexuals to the seminary, the following statement appears to be a departure from prior teaching:
“In the formation process, when reference is made to homosexual tendencies, it is also appropriate not to reduce discernment only to this aspect, but, as for every candidate, to grasp its meaning in the global framework of the young person’s personality, so that, by knowing himself and integrating the objectives proper to the human and priestly vocation, he arrives at a general harmony.”
This statement creates confusion and appears to be the primary basis for recent media reports announcing a change in policy. The Italian bishops could easily remedy the situation by revising or removing this statement from their guidelines.
It is also worthy to note that suspicion regarding the Italian bishops’ intent has been fueled by Fiducia Supplicans which employed a strategy of “sandwiching” innovation between statements of orthodoxy in order to justify the blessing of homosexual unions.
A provisional document published by the Italian Bishops’ Conference on Friday (Jan. 10) and approved by the Vatican cautiously opens the door for the ordination of openly gay men to the priesthood, while maintaining the normal requirement of chastity.
“In the formative process, when referring to homosexual tendencies, it’s also appropriate not to reduce discernment only to this aspect, but, as for every candidate, to grasp its meaning in the global framework of the young person’s personality,” the document reads, adding that the goal is for the candidate to know himself and find harmony between his human and priestly vocation.
The Vatican department for clergy approved the document, which will be valid for three years. The document was signed by the head of the Italian bishops, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who is considered a close collaborator to Pope Francis.
The objective of the preparation for a candidate who is seeking to become a priest when it comes to his sexuality, the document states, “is the ability to accept as a gift, to freely choose and to live chastity in celibacy in a responsible way.”
The document, titled “The Formation of Presbyters in Italian Churches. Guidelines and Rules for Seminaries,” was approved by the Italian bishops who met for their general assembly Nov. 13-16 in Assisi. The episcopacy in Italy, where vocations are at an all-time low, has been pushing the envelope in terms of making the Catholic Church more palatable to modern concerns by suggesting a greater role for women in the formation of priests, a commitment to combating sexual abuse and the acceptance of gay men to the priesthood.
According to the 2005 Vatican instruction by the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, “while the church deeply respects the people in question, it cannot admit to the seminary or to Holy Orders those who practice homosexuality, have deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture.”
In this perspective, there will not be a barrier to homosexuals as such but to those who “practise” homosexual acts.
“In the formative process, when reference is made to homosexual tendencies it is appropriate not to reduce discernment to this aspect alone”, the guide said.
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.
“This is the first time I’ve seen in a Vatican-approved document the suggestion that discernment about whether a gay man may enter the seminary cannot be determined simply by his sexual orientation,” said the Rev. James Martin, a high-profile supporter of making the church more welcoming to gay Catholics.
The Vatican has approved new guidelines from Italian bishops that allow gay men to enter seminaries as long as they abstain from sex, in an unexpected adjustment to how the global Catholic Church considers possible future priests.
Although the Vatican had not explicitly barred gay men from entering the priesthood in the past, an earlier 2016 instruction had said seminaries cannot admit menwho have “deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”
The Vatican has approved new guidelines that allow gay men to become priests as long as they abstain from sex.
The new, more permissive, guidelines were drawn up by the Catholic Church in Italy in November and were confirmed this week by the Vatican’s clergy office.
They appear to be a relaxation of the Vatican’s prior rules, which decreed that seminaries – colleges for trainee priests – should not admit men who display “deep-seated homosexual tendencies”.
The Vatican has reportedly approved guidelines permitting gay men to enter seminaries and become priests, provided they remain celibate. The new guidelines issued by Italian bishops marks a departure from the 2016 instruction that discouraged candidates with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” from entering the priesthood. The new directives encourage seminary directors to evaluate a candidate’s sexual orientation as just one part of their overall personality. “When referring to homosexual tendencies in the formation process, it is also appropriate not to reduce the discernment to this aspect alone, but … to understand its meaning within the whole framework of the young person’s personality,” the guidelines state.
This marks a significant change in the Church’s approach. Previously, Benedict XVI explicitly prohibited the admission of individuals with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” to the seminary.
This position was confirmed by Pope Francis in 2018 during a meeting with Italian bishops, where he instructed them to “vet carefully applicants to the priesthood and reject anyone they suspected might be homosexual.”
This development is a big step forward. It clarifies previous ambiguous statements about gay seminary candidates, which viewed them with suspicion. This ambiguity caused lots of fear and discrimination in the church, way beyond the arena of seminary admissions. This new clarification treats gay candidates in the same way that heterosexual candidates are treated. That type of equal treatment is what the Church should be aiming for in regards to all LGBTQ+ issues.