Staff Edit: Gays in the Catholic Clergy

The Vatican has drafted a new policy on gays in the priesthood that will bar men who have “deeply rooted” homosexual tendencies rather than those who may have had homosexual tendencies in the past but who have overcome that stage.

The policy also demands, however, that homosexuals be “treated with respect and delicacy” and that necessary steps should be taken to avoid “any sign of discrimination,” The Boston Globe quoted an Italian newspaper as saying.

But which of the two is it, non-discrimination or barring homosexuals from practicing as priests?

Though the Catholic Church, as a religious institution, has traditionally set its own policy with little regard for the law, it should not consider a person’s sexual preferences unless that person is known to engage in active, homosexual activity that would impede on his ability to serve as a priest.

It is unreasonable to suggest that a person’s sexual preferences must be determined when being chosen to become a priest, because some might be unwilling to make that information public. Some might be too embarrassed, or be inactive homosexuals who do not feel it necessary to admit it.

When Pope Benedict XVI took office last year, there was concern among some in the Catholic community that his ideology would be too conservative, that it would set back the institution rather than propel it forward into the reality of the 21st century.

Benedict XVI started out with a scrambled view on homosexuals in the Church, and he still may not realize that determining a person’s sexual orientation can often come only out of heresy and making assumptions – not on actual fact.

To say that “Tendencies that might have been only an expression of a transitional problem, such as that of adolescence … should be clearly overcome at least three years” before ordination, is certainly a discrimination even against sexually inactive priests who gave up their homosexual tendencies two years ago.

It is unfortunate that though the introduction of a new pope gave hope to some that this would be a time of needed change and modernization to the Church, this new policy, as reported in the Italian media, is only contributing to a leap backward.