Pope Francis. (Photo by palinchak via Bigstock)
The Vatican has approved new guidelines that opens the door for gay men in Italy to become priests.
The New York Times on Jan. 10 reported the Vatican approved the guidelines the Italian Bishop’s Conference adopted last November.
The guidelines specifically stipulate seminaries cannot reject applicants simply because of their sexual orientation, as long as they remain celibate. They will remain in place for what the Times described as a “3-year trial period.”
“This development is a big step forward,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a press release. “It clarifies previous ambiguous statements about gay seminary candidates, which viewed them with suspicion. This ambiguity caused lots of fear and discrimination in the church, way beyond the arena of seminary admissions.”
“This new clarification treats gay candidates in the same way that heterosexual candidates are treated,” added DeBernardo. “That type of equal treatment is what the church should be aiming for in regards to all LGBTQ+ issues.”
The Vatican in 2016 reaffirmed gay men becoming priests.
“The church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture,’” reads a document the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy released that Pope Francis approved.
The document essentially reaffirmed the Vatican’s 2005 position on the issue. (Benedict XVI was pope at the time.)
The Vatican’s tone towards LGBTQ and intersex issues has softened since Francis became pope in 2013.
Francis publicly backs civil unions for same-sex couples, and has described laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust.” Francis in 2023 said priests can bless same-sex couples.
The pontiff earlier this month named Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, who DeBernardo notes has made “strong positive statements regarding LGBTQ+ issues,” as the new archbishop of Washington. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Brian Burch, the president and co-founder of CatholicVote, an anti-LGBTQ Catholic group, to become the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
Francis during a 2023 interview with an Argentine newspaper described gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world because “it blurs differences and the value of men and women.” A declaration the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released last March with Francis’s approval condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.”
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