PASADENA (CA)
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
By Marshall Allen Staff Writer
PASADENA - A Vatican document that says men with "deep-rooted homosexual tendencies" should be discouraged from the priesthood is causing mixed reactions among Catholic leaders.
The official church instruction was released Tuesday to provide bishops and leaders of spiritual orders and seminaries with criteria for discerning whether homosexuals should be admitted into the priesthood. It underscores the church teaching that same-sex acts are "grave sins," and says men with homosexual tendencies are to be carefully considered before being admitted to the priesthood.
Liberal Catholic groups condemned the document, titled "Instruction on the Criteria for Vocational Discernment With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders."
Liberals say it stigmatizes gays and wrongly links them to the church's sex abuse crisis.