Vatican defends ban on priests

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican defended a policy statement designed to keep men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies from becoming priests, but said there would be no crackdown on gays who are already ordained.\nThe Vatican document, the first major policy statement of Pope Benedict XVI's papacy, was officially released Tuesday after being leaked earlier. Conservatives have said it may help reverse the "gay culture" of many U.S. seminaries, while liberal critics complain the restrictions will create morale problems among clergy and lead to an even greater priest shortage in the United States.\nThe Rev. James Martin, a U.S. Jesuit who has written on the issue, said American theologians, canon lawyers and other Roman Catholics will "hope that the document won't really mean what it says." But he believes it's clear the Vatican wants to keep gay men from being ordained -- even if they're committed to celibacy -- and hopes bishops and seminary rectors will act accordingly.\nMartin predicted "a slow, silent attrition among celibate gay men who cannot accept the idea of staying in an organization that condemns their existence in the priesthood."\nMatt Foreman of America's National Gay and Lesbian Task Force called the document "appalling," saying it was an affront to thousands of gay priests. He accused the Vatican of "a calculated campaign to blame gay men for the church's own criminal conduct in fostering and covering up decades of sex abuse."\nThe official "Instruction" from the Congregation for Catholic Education was released a week after an Italian Catholic news agency posted a leaked copy on its Web site.\nThe document has been in the works for years, but its existence came to light in 2002 at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal in the United States. A study commissioned by U.S. bishops found most abuse victims since 1950 were adolescent boys.\nExperts on sex offenders say homosexuals are no more likely than heterosexuals to molest young people, but that did not stifle questions about gay seminarians.\nThe Instruction said men "who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called `gay culture'" cannot be admitted to seminaries. The only exception would be for those with a "transitory problem" that had been overcome for at least three years.\nThe head of the education congregation defended the document as a clear reflection of long-standing church teaching, saying that "in this field, in today's world, there is some confusion."\n"Many defend the position according to which the homosexual condition is a normal condition for the human being, as if it were nearly a third gender," Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski told Vatican Radio.\nHe also made clear the Instruction was intended for candidates for the priesthood and not someone who "discovers his homosexuality after having been ordained"