Vatican Response on Possibility of
Ordaining Homosexuals to Priesthood
A Guest Document by
ZENIT, December 09 , 2002
Ordaining Homosexuals to Priesthood
A Guest Document by
ZENIT, December 09 , 2002
VATICAN RESPONSE ON POSSIBILITY OF ORDAINING HOMOSEXUALS TO PRIESTHOOD
Letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments VATICAN CITY, DEC. 9, 2002
(Zenit.org).- Here is the letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments in
response to the consultation of a bishop who asked if it is licit to confer priestly ordination to
men with manifest homosexual tendencies.
The letter was published in Italian in the November-December issue of "Notitiae," the bulletin of
the Vatican congregation.
* * *
Pro. N. 886/02/0
Vatican City, May 16, 2002
Most Reverend Excellency:
The Congregation for Clergy has sent this Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of
the Sacraments your Excellency's letter, asking us to clarify the possibility that men with
homosexual tendencies be able to receive priestly ordination.
This Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, conscious of the
experience resulting from many instructed causes for the purpose of obtaining dispensation from
the obligations that derive from Holy Ordination, and after due consultation with the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, expresses its judgment as follows:
Ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies
is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A
homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not, therefore, fit to receive the
sacrament of Holy Orders.
I take the opportunity to send you my most cordial greetings.
Yours sincerely in Domino Your Most Reverend Excellency
Jorge A. Card. Medina Estévez
Prefect
Prefect
[Translation by ZENIT]
ZE02120901
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