The much-anticipated Vatican guidelines for the admission of homosexuals to seminaries were finally released this week. But they seem to have raised more questions than answers as to their true meaning. Our Rome correspondent explains the thinking behind the thinking

JUST 60 SECONDS after the Vatican released its document on norms for the admission of homosexuals to seminaries to journalists on Tuesday, Bishop William Skylstad, the president of the United States bishops? conference, released a two-page comment. Shortly afterwards his counterpart in England and Wales ? Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O?Connor ? also issued a statement. The bishops of Switzerland had already released a brief on the text after a leaked version appeared last week on the Adista news agency website. All the comments were nuanced and what many would call sensible interpretations of the new norms. They seemed to interpret the text as meaning that homosexual men could be admitted to seminary as long as they were chastely celibate, had attained ?sexual maturity?, were not participating in the ?so-called gay culture?, and did not make their sexual orientation the main focus of their lives.

Here in Italy and in the Vatican there has been a very different response. No Roman Curia office or official has been willing to speak on the record about the relatively small document. The Italian bishops? conference was in no rush to join in the current discussion ahead of its own document on the subject to be published ?soon?. The Italian media exhibited an unusual nonchalance towards the issue; even people deeply involved in the Church seemed to just shrug their shoulders. But between these two responses ? attentiveness to deciphering the document?s true intent and an apparent total lack of interest ? there were two Vatican comments on the Instruction; one was a Secretariat of State-approved article in the Vatican newspaper, L?Osservatore Romano, by a French priest-psychoanalyst, and the other was a Vatican Radio interview with the cardinal whose office issued the document. They are likely to be used as the official key to unlocking the true meaning and intention of the text.

Taking the Vatican Radio interview first, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, the prefect of the Congregation for Education, seemed to suggest that the document?s main point is that homosexuality cannot be considered normal. He told the radio audience that the new document was ?nothing extraordinary, because on this problem of homosexuality the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has already made pronouncements many times?. And, indeed, the CDF has expounded on the question at least four times since its 1975 ?Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics?. In his 10-minute pre-recorded interview in Italian, Cardinal Grocholewski revealed what appears to be the main point of this latest document: ?Many people hold the position according to which the homosexual condition would be a normal condition of the human person, almost like a third type; but this absolutely contradicts human anthropology; it contradicts ? according to the thinking of the Church ? natural law, and that which God himself has impressed on human nature.?

The 66-year-old Polish cardinal, who has lived in Rome since 1966, quoted from the document: ?We have given as a principle that three categories of persons cannot be admitted to seminary or priestly ordination: those that practise homosexuality, those that have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, and those that support the so-called gay culture. Concerning persons that have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, we are deeply convinced that these hinder them from relating correctly with men and women.?

But Cardinal Grocholewski did not shed any new light on what the Instruction actually intends by the term ?deep-seated homosexual tendencies?. Rather, he contrasted them with transitory tendencies or transitory cases that do not constitute an obstacle. ?For example, some curiosity during adolescence; or accidental circumstances in a state of drunkenness; or particular circumstances, like someone who was in prison for many years.? He even provided the case of homosexual acts that one engages in to obtain favours. ?In such cases, these acts do not originate from a deep-seated tendency but are determined by other transitory circumstances, and they do not constitute an obstacle to admission to the seminary or to Holy Orders. However, in such cases, they must cease at least three years before diaconal ordination,? he said.

The cardinal?s radio interview was followed by a two-page spread in L?Osservatore Romano, given over to lengthy reflections on the document by Mgr Tony Anatrella, who specialises in social psychology at a Jesuit institute in Paris. His basic point was that homosexuality is nothing more than sexual ?incompleteness and immaturity?. He called it a ?destabilising reality for persons and society? that had ?no social value and, even less, moral virtue?. And in males, he noted, homosexuality demonstrated a lack of ?sufficient affective and sexual maturity in coherence with one?s masculine sexual identity?. Significantly, the Vatican?s Secretariat of State gave specific approval for the article?s publication.

Mgr Anatrella, a consultor for the pontifical councils for the family and health care, wrote of the new document: ?The Church had the duty to again recall that the homosexual tendency is a counter-indication to the call to Holy Orders.? He continued: ?A man who is preparing to become a priest in the image of the humanity of Christ, in a spousal bond with the Church and in spiritual fatherhood, must be free from all that would impede the fruitful exercise of his ministry.? He said homosexuals were incapable of this. ?The spousal bond and spiritual fatherhood are extraneous to homosexuality, which can neither incarnate nor symbolise conjugal life and priestly life.? A person with homosexual tendencies, he said, ?should not be accepted for formation or, if he was accepted before being aware of his situation, his formation must be interrupted?.

Like Cardinal Grocholewski, Mgr Anatrella intimated that the document?s primary scope was to forcefully reiterate the Vatican?s long-standing position that homosexuality can never be considered anything but a disorder and rejected the argument that homosexuals could be priests as long as they remained faithful to their promises or vows of celibacy. In fact, Mgr Anatrella said, homosexual priests ?often lived with strong psychological tensions that limited their self-giving spirit? and sometimes led to ?sexual experiences?. He said they often exercised their priesthood ?towards narcissistic ends where pastoral activity consists solely in surrounding oneself with a limited group of persons, in a context of seduction ? Some adopt dubious affective conduct, express criticism regarding the essential reality of the priestly life, and contest the teaching truths of the Church.?

It is hard to believe that all the bishops and religious superiors in the world would accept this interpretation of the Congregation?s document. A canon lawyer who works in the Vatican said ? on condition he not be identified ? that he agreed. ?Bishops make the decisions, not some consultor to a couple of councils,? he noted, saying that the Instruction was open to a much more compassionate analysis. ?It is frustrating for psychologists to read a text like [the Instruction],? said Fr Raymond Douziech CSsR, a clinical psychologist who is an official at the Rome headquarters of the Redemptorists order. He said the document gave ?no apparent indication that anything but previous church documents were consulted?. Fr Douziech was director from 1985 to 2000 at the Redemptorist Growth Centre in Western Canada, an institute that offered counselling and spiritual direction to both clergy and laity. ?The predominant concern?, he said of the Vatican text, ?is that healthy priests must have reached affective maturity.? However, he noted that such terms as ?affective maturity? and ?deep-seated homosexual tendencies? were left undefined in the Instruction, which could leave a lot of room for misinterpretation. ?Is it about people who have unresolved sexual integration, who have one foot in one world and one in another? This is true for both heterosexuals and homosexuals.? The Redemptorist priest said the document raised some ?healthy concerns?, but he added, ?I?m sorry that certain statements were not adequately explained, because people who are rigid will tend to take a hard line.?

Robert Mickens writes for The Tablet from Rome.