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TORONTO, October 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A report widely circulated today from the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera claims the expected Vatican document on homosexuality and the priesthood says those who exhibit homosexual tendencies cannot be ordained unless they can show they have lived chastely for at least three years. This contradicts previous reports indicating the document would re-emphasize traditional norms against the ordination of even celibate men with homosexual tendencies.

According to the Italian daily, the upcoming Vatican document supposedly goes on to say that men who publicly show their homosexuality and those who reveal an attraction to the homosexual lifestyle and culture should also be excluded from the priesthood.

Father Alphonse de Valk, a Toronto Basilian order priest, historian, and publisher of Catholic Insight magazine told LifeSiteNews.com this latest report is “all a rumor mill.” He expanded, “the pro-homosexual lobby within the Catholic Church is participating in a rumor mill with the hope they can water down a document which rejects a homosexual condition as not suitable for the priesthood.”

De valk indicated the Corriere della Sera report did not appear to make sense since it would be a rejection of Church discipline on the issue since well before the latest 1961 Instruction that clearly stated homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood.

“It has always been the policy of the Church”, said de Valk, “that homosexuals should not be ordained. Not only since 1961. ‘Particular friendships’ was something that was abhorred in all the spiritual direction books of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. They called it ‘particular friendships’ by which they meant homosexual. It was to be warned against.”

Fr de Valk has followed the homosexual issue for many years, has written numerous articles on it and sounded the alarm over 20 years ago about the advancement of a homosexual agenda within the Church and in general society.

See Catholic Insight Article by Fr. deValk
  Clergy scandals summarized
https://catholicinsight.com/online/political/homosexuality/article_337.shtml

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