VATICAN CITY (CNS): A Vatican congregation, in response to a query by a bishop, said men who are homosexuals or have homosexual tendencies should not be ordained priests.
Ordaining such candidates to the priesthood would be imprudent and “very risky”, said a letter from Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, who was prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments at the time the letter was written.
Cardinal Medina’s letter, published earlier this month in the congregation’s bulletin, was written last May to an unnamed bishop who had inquired about the propriety of ordaining homosexual men. The cardinal retired as congregation head in October.
The bishop originally had sent his question to the Congregation for Clergy, which passed it on to the sacraments congregation.
Cardinal Medina wrote that in making its judgment the congregation took into consideration its experience in processing requests for laicisation by some priests. It said it was publishing the response because it deemed it opportune to do so at this “particular moment”.
