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Good point but the directives of Rome on this matter are well known, just not followed.

Vatican spokesman's comments highlight debate over gay priests
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican official's comments on the priesthood and homosexuality have drawn public attention to an issue that has been quietly debated at the Vatican for several years.
Vatican sources said that, in general, church leaders are pressing harder so that people of permanent homosexual orientation are screened out as candidates for the priesthood.
So far, this has been handled through prudent local decisions rather than explicit orders issued from the Vatican, they said. But it is something Vatican officials have emphasized to bishops in recent discussions on priestly vocations and seminary programs, the sources said.
A new document on the issue also is being considered. A study on the question of homosexual candidates to the priesthood was completed last year at the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, and sources said a set of guidelines for seminaries may follow.
In January, the same congregation examined proposed guidelines on psychological testing for seminary candidates. Church officials view homosexuality as a potential problem that could be disclosed by such testing.
Last year, a top Vatican doctrinal official spoke of the negative effects of homosexuality within the priesthood and said: "The Holy See views this as a very serious problem and is determined to take steps to correct it."
The issue was raised again in early March when Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told The New York Times that "people with (homosexual) inclinations just cannot be ordained."
"That does not imply a final judgment on people with homosexuality," he said. "But you cannot be in this field."
In response to questions by Catholic News Service, Navarro-Valls declined to elaborate on his comments. He said he did not want to draw more attention to this topic, especially while U.S. church leaders were dealing with the more immediate problem of sex abuse by clergy.
Yet many at the Vatican see the two issues as related -- if not causally, then at least circumstantially. Most publicized cases of sex abuse by clergy against minors have involved homosexual acts.
Church officials, who asked not to be named, said the Vatican was not trying to impose an arbitrary norm against homosexuals, but was trying to make "prudential decisions" based on individual cases at the seminary level. They noted that the Vatican views the issue as mainly dealing with future priests, not those already ordained.
As for objections that screening homosexuals would violate their rights, the sources said the priesthood was a question of vocation or divine grace, not human rights. In the church's view, no one has a "right" to be ordained, they said.
Some church officials have questioned whether some ordinations might even be considered invalid because of homosexuality. But the sources said that is not how the Vatican plans to approach the issue. For one thing, the validity of orders is a thorny church law question that would in turn raise pastoral problems -- such as the legitimacy of past sacramental acts carried out by a priest whose ordination was judged invalid.
The "Catechism of the Catholic Church" teaches that homosexual acts are a grave sin against chastity and that the homosexual orientation is "intrinsically disordered."
In an interview in 2001 with CNS, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, explained why church leaders view a homosexual orientation as a potential problem in a seminarian.
Archbishop Bertone said that while the homosexual inclination is not sinful in itself, it "evokes moral concern" because it is a strong temptation to actions that "are always in themselves evil."
He defined the homosexual inclination as "a temptation that, for whatever reason, has become so predominant in a person's life as to become a force shaping the entire outlook of the person."
"Persons with a homosexual inclination should not be admitted to the seminary," Archbishop Bertone said.
In 1961, a Vatican document on the selection of candidates to the priesthood said much the same thing. The instruction was issued by the then-Sacred Congregation for Religious and concerned those entering religious orders.
"Those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination," it said. It said the community life and priestly ministry would constitute a "grave danger" or temptation for these people.
The document recommended that any person with serious unresolved sexual problems be screened out, saying that the chastity and celibacy required by religious and priestly life would constitute for them a "continuous heroic act and a painful martyrdom."
The 1961 document has never been abrogated, so is still technically valid, officials said. But now, the Vatican is considering a reformulation of these principles, so that the message gets through more clearly to local churches.
END