Vatican officials: No publication date for gay seminarians document

Published: 2005-09-22

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican has been working since 2001 on an instruction against accepting homosexual candidates to the priesthood, but several officials said in late September that Pope Benedict XVI has not approved the document yet, so a date for its publication has not been set. "Obviously, it will come out, but the question is when," one Vatican official told Catholic News Service Sept. 22. A top official at one of the congregations working on the instruction insisted Sept. 22, "It has not been approved. There is nothing new" to report about the document's progress. Since 2001 -- when the Congregation for Catholic Education, which is responsible for setting seminary policies, decided an instruction was needed and began working with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on a draft -- numerous reports have been published claiming it was about to be released. As of late September, no publication date had been announced and no Vatican official was willing to be quoted by name about the document's content.

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