Vatican: Ordination Of Gays 'Very Risky'

The ordination of gay men into the priesthood is "imprudent" and "very risky," according to a letter written by a top Vatican official.

The claim by Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez likely will fuel the debate about homosexuals in the priesthood — a perennial issue gaining new attention after the clergy sex abuse scandal in the United States and elsewhere.

Medina Estevez, the recently retired prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, offered his thoughts about gays in the priesthood in a letter published in the congregation's magazine, Notitiae.

Ordination "of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent, and from the pastoral point of view, very risky," Medina Estevez wrote.

"A homosexual person or someone with homosexual tendencies is not, therefore, suitable to receive the sacrament of holy orders," he said in the letter to an unidentified cleric dated May 16 and published in the magazine's November-December editions. Medina Estevez retired as prefect in October.

The Vatican is drafting new guidelines for accepting candidates for the priesthood that are expected to address the ordination of gays.

The document — under prepared by the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education — is not expected before next year.

News reports in Italy and the United States in recent weeks have said that initial drafts of the new guidelines recommend seminaries bar men with homosexual tendencies.

The issue of gays in the priesthood has gained attention after accusations in the United States that priests molested children, and that Church leaders tried to cover it up by moving known abusers from parish to parish.

Most of the victims have been adolescent boys. Experts on sex offenders say there is no credible evidence that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to abuse children, but several church leaders have argued that gay clergy are to blame for the scandal.