No, the Italian Bishops Did Not Change Admission Criteria for Homosexuals

Despite what Dr Stine implied in the video I shared earlier the Italian Conference of Bishops hasn't thrown the doors of its seminaries open to perverts.

From Rorate Cæli

PRUDENCE

The news made the rounds everywhere last week: the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI, for its name in Italian) expanded the possibility of the attendance of its seminaries by homosexuals. Basically, if they aren't practicing homosexuals, they could be admitted.

This was stirred by the Italian mainstream media -- for instance, by news agency ANSA (here). It was inevitably picked up by all kinds of media in English, and seemed to contradict the original sense of the 2005 instrution by the Congregation for Catholic Education, approved by Benedict XVI, that had a more restrictive position:

"...this Dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'."

Rorate Caeli's position has always been to try to find the sources: we are not, and have never been, automatically against anything or anyone. It seemed that the conference had excluded only “practicing” homosexuals. 

But the exact language of the document actually just repeats the 2005 instruction that excludes three categories: “those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture’.” It is paragraph #44 in the document, available here.

Some have insisted on the Italian media interpretation, by saying that the 2024 Italian document speaks of the individual seen as a whole, with a "harmonic" view of the person. While that is true, this is unfortunately not much different from the overall tone of the following paragraphs of the 2005 Instruction (cf. for instance, the long words on "discernment" of chapter 3 of that 2005 document -- which leave much to the interpretation of the local ordinaries and seminary administrators). Even at the time, many thought it should have been much clearer and stern — and higher in authority than a Dicastery instruction.

Homosexuality in the Sacred Priesthood remains a considerable problem -- less so now than in the post-conciliar years, but it is possible that it may reappear as a major problem following this pontificate. One day one hopes a papal document of considerable authority will face the question with not a hint of ambiguity and shut the doors of ordination for any risky individual once and for all.