“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,” reads the lead of a January 10 Reuters report.
On the same day, The New York Times reported, "The Vatican allows Italian homosexuals to train to become priests, if they remain celibate." The newspaper further reported that the "seminary candidates should not be disqualified because of their sexual orientation, according to new Church guidelines in Italy."
For Fr. James Martin, a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits/SJ) and promoter of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) Outreach apostolate, "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 simply be determined by his sexual orientation."
"My reading of this--and it is only my reading--is that if a gay man is able to lead a healthy chaste and celibate life, he may be considered for admission to the seminary. ," the American Jesuit Priest further says in a post on his social network X, adding, “So, as I see it, this is something of a step forward.”
Bishop Manetti has weighed in on these interpretations, saying that in Paragraph 44 of the CEI document on Priestly formation in Italy, "the objective of the formation of the candidate for the priesthood in the affective-sexual sphere is the ability to accept as a gift, to choose freely and to live responsibly celibate chastity."
The interpretation that gay men can be admitted to the Priesthood "is not a correct reading because the paragraph (44) reiterates the norms of the magisterium from the beginning," the Catholic newspaper Avvenire has quoted the Italian Catholic Bishop as emphasizing.
According to Avvenire, paragraph 44 of the CEI document "reiterates, word for word, what was established in number 199 of the document issued by the then Congregation for the Clergy, entitled "The Gift of the Priestly Vocation. Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis" of December 8, 2016 and which takes up in turn the content of the Instruction issued by the then Congregation for Catholic Education in 2005."
Both the 2026 and the 2005 documents indicate that persons with "deeply rooted" homosexual tendencies cannot be admitted to Seminaries, the Catholic newspaper has further reported.
Paragraph 44 reads in part: "With regard to persons with homosexual tendencies who approach Seminaries, or who discover this situation during formation, in coherence with the Magisterium, 'the Church, while deeply respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the Seminary and to Holy Orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture. Such persons are indeed in a situation that seriously hinders a correct relationship with men and women'".
According to the Catholic newspaper Avvenire, the novelty of the CEI document published on January 9 is in the "discernment" of candidates to the Priesthood, especially in the first three years of their formation.
