ROME
LifeSite
ROME, November 30, 2005 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - A Vatican consultant, in an interview with the I Media news service, has observed that the Church has always taught that homosexuals should not become priests, since they suffer from a "structural incoherence" in their approach to human sexuality. The question of whether homosexual men should become priests has been raised repeatedly by Church leaders, and always answered negatively said Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a French Jesuit who is a consultant to the Pontifical Council on the Family. The French priest-psychologist cited decisions by the Council of Paris in 819, and the 3rd and 4th Lateran Councils in 1169 and 1215.
Writing in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, in an article that appeared alongside the newly released instruction on homosexuality and the priesthood, Msgr. Anatrella wrote that the new Vatican Instruction barring homosexuals from Catholic seminaries was necessary because "homosexuality has become an increasingly worrisome problem," adding that the acceptance of homosexuality could have a "destabilizing" effect on the lives of individuals and on society at large.
Msgr. Anatrella said that homosexuality is "a tendency and not an identity." The Catholic Church, he argued, has a duty to warn against the acceptance of an "incomplete and immature" approach to human sexuality.