Document stops short of banning gay priests

VATICAN CITY) - A Vatican document expected to be made public soon stops short of a sweeping ban on homosexuals entering the priesthood, allowing those who have lived chastely for three years to be candidates for the clergy, a senior Vatican official said Friday.

The document, in the works for at least three years, updates Vatican policy, which had held that gays or men with homosexual tendencies should not be ordained, regardless of whether they can remain celibate.

The new document permits candidates who have lived a chaste life for at least three years before their admission to a seminary, said the senior official, who requested anonymity because the document has not yet been released.

The official confirmed a report in leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Friday listing the reasons for not admitting gay candidates, which include men who publicly show their homosexuality and those who reveal an attraction to what the document described as the gay lifestyle.

The report, by the newspaper's chief Vatican correspondent, Luigi Accattoli, cited sources speaking to him about the document from the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education.

The Italian weekly Panorama said in its Friday editions that Pope Benedict XVI approved the document during the summer.

In a similar report Friday, the National Catholic Reporter said seminary officials will be asked to exercise "prudential judgment."

One Vatican official said the document would be published very soon, but he refused to discuss the contents.

The senior official told The Associated Press, "Anyone who knows Catholic teaching should not be surprised by what the document says."

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