WASHINGTON (DC)
New York Sun
By MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 23, 2005
WASHINGTON - A new document refining the Vatican's position on homosexuals in the priesthood will place greater pressure on American bishops, seminary rectors, and local clergy, and may inflame tensions among leaders of the Catholic Church in America, observers said yesterday.
Despite criticism from some quarters, those supportive of the document's stipulations said it might also result in more careful attention being paid to the process by which young men become priests, ultimately proving beneficial to the church.
The document, first made public by an Italian Catholic news agency, Anista, was issued by the church's Congregation for Catholic Education, a group of cardinals and bishops whose responsibilities include overseeing the training of new priests. It provides "instruction concerning the criteria of vocational discernment regarding persons with homosexual tendencies in view of their admission to seminaries and holy orders," and won praise from some orthodox Catholics as an important affirmation of central church teaching on the matter of homosexuality.