Gay ordination `risky,' says Vatican leader

Christian Century, Dec 18, 2002

An influential cardinal who until recently held a top Vatican post has called the ordination of homosexuals priests "inadvisable," "imprudent" and "very risky." The judgment of Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez was made public during heightened debate on the issue, prompted by scandals over pedophile priests in the U.S. and elsewhere. The Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education is drafting guidelines on candidates for the priesthood, which may bar homosexuals.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published Medina Estevez's view in its November-December bulletin Notitiae. The Chilean cardinal discussed the issue in a letter he wrote May 16 while serving as head of the congregation.

"The ordination to the diaconate or the priesthood of men who are homosexuals or have homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and from the pastoral point of view very risky," the cardinal wrote. "A person who is a homosexual or has homosexual tendencies is not, therefore, suitable to receive the sacrament of holy orders."

Medina Estevez, a former secretary of the Latin American bishops' council who is considered a conservative on doctrinal matters, wrote the letter in response to a question from an unidentified bishop, which the Congregation for the Clergy referred to him. He retired in October and was succeeded by Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria. The Chilean said he had consulted the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and taken into account the significant number of cases of homosexual clergy seeking to leave the priesthood.

Although psychiatrists do not believe that pedophilia and homosexuality are related, the pedophilia scandals have provoked renewed demands that homosexuals be excluded from seminaries. Sergio Lo Giudice, president of Italy's Archigay organization representing homosexuals, accused the Catholic Church of turning against homosexuals because it was "incapable of giving a concrete response to the problem of pedophile priests."

Despite their reservations about commenting on controversies in another church, the Episcopal bishops of the Diocese of Massachusetts have publicly warned of an increase in hate crimes because of negative statements by Vatican officials about gays in the priesthood.

Bishops M. Thomas Shaw and Roy Cederholm Jr., as well as bishop-elect Gayle Harris, all said they are alarmed because of news reports that the Vatican is preparing a document that would propose a ban on gay seminarians. "I'm really concerned about hate crimes and homophobia that come from supposedly responsible people making statements like this," Shaw added.

The Episcopal bishops expressed their concern in an opinion piece in the December 10 Boston Globe. "Suggestions that gays molest children lead to homophobia and create a dangerous atmosphere in which hate crimes flourish," the bishops said. Shaw said that he was aware of only two instances of priests in his diocese abusing minors in recent years and that both were heterosexuals.--RNS