The Vatican has announced new guidelines which say homosexuality should not preclude men from training to become priests in the Catholic faith.
The new guidelines say homosexual men can train for the priesthood, but like all priests must maintain a vow of celibacy and they must refrain from “support the so-called gay culture”.
The move has been welcomed as a big step forward for the Catholic church.
A section of the new 68-page document deals with the scenario of a person with “homosexual tendancies” approaching seminaries to commence training as a priest, or those who discover they have homosexual feelings during their training.
The new guidelines appear to show support for potential priests who have gay feelings, but might rule out those who have acted on their same-sex attraction or been public about their sexuality.
“The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary and to Holy Orders those who practise homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture,” it reads.
The new guidelines have been approved by the Vatican. Since being ordained in 2013, Pope Francis has taken a very different approach to homosexuality than his predecessors.
However last year he issued an apology after it was reported that he had used a gay slur when speaking about their being too much homosexuality amongst the ranks of priests.
