With restrictions Italian bishops open seminaries to homosexuals
Gay men are allowed to train as Catholic priests in Italy - provided they do not flaunt their sexual orientation. This is the result of new rules from the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI), which were approved by the Vatican and came into force on Thursday.
10.01.2025, 23:14
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- Gay men are allowed to train as Catholic priests in Italy.
- They are not allowed to flaunt their sexual orientation.
- Pope Francis has campaigned for a more inclusive church throughout his pontificate.
Accordingly, the Catholic Church in Italy will also allow homosexual men to enter the seminary in future. However, "practising homosexuals" could not be admitted, nor could men who "have deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support a so-called homosexual culture", according to the 68-page document.
Pope Francis has campaigned for a more inclusive church throughout his pontificate and has shown himself to be more open to LGBTQ+ Catholics than his predecessors. However, official Catholic church doctrine still states that same-sex acts are "disordered by nature".
Derailment of the Pope
In 2013, just a few weeks after taking office, Francis declared: "If someone is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to condemn him?".
In June of this year, however, the Pope made derogatory remarks about homosexuals in the Catholic Church at a meeting of the Italian Bishops' Conference, according to reports in the Italian media. He called on the bishops not to accept openly homosexual men into the seminaries because there was already enough "faggotry" there. After heavy criticism, the Pope apologized for his statement.