PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, September 18, 2005
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Three Western Pennsylvania seminaries will be evaluated during the next five months in a Vatican study prompted by the Catholic sexual abuse scandals that erupted in 2002.
U.S. bishops requested the study, which will examine the psychological, spiritual, intellectual and sexual factors that shape priests.
One of the study's 55 questions -- and one of only six mandatory ones -- concerns whether there is "evidence of homosexuality in the seminary." This has drawn fire from those who fear that the evaluation is a witch hunt to purge gay seminarians.
"The Vatican continues to be obsessed about homosexuality," said Debbie Weill, executive director of DignityUSA, a group for gay Catholics.