Friday, September 02, 2005
WHO'S ON THIRD ?
Another shell game is shaping up in Rome.
VATICAN CITY -- As the Vatican prepares to visit U.S. seminaries in September in response to the sex abuse scandal, the fate of a long-awaited Vatican document on whether homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood appears uncertain.
One senior Vatican official suggested it might have been shelved, though top American churchmen said they understood it would be coming out soon.
The Vatican press office announced in November 2002, at the height of the sex scandal, that the Congregation for Catholic Education was drawing up guidelines for accepting candidates for the priesthood that would address the question of whether gays should be barred.
The document has been controversial from the start, and there has long been speculation that it may never be released because of its sensitive nature. Some priests have said the document is sorely needed, while others say it will do more harm than good, antagonizing existing homosexual priests and driving others underground.
A senior Vatican official said recent news reports that the document was in the hands of Pope Benedict XVI were "completely wrong" and there was no news on the topic -- implying that the document may have been shelved, at least for now.
"There is nothing new," the official said.
The chairman of the U.S. bishops' committee on priestly formation, Bishop John Nienstedt, said he had been told by the Congregation for Catholic Education that the document would be coming out soon, and other American churchmen said they too were expecting it.
"I don't know where the document is," Nienstedt said in a phone interview Wednesday. "My understanding from the congregation was that it would come out soon."
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