c. 2005 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Defending the role of gay priests as an asset to the Roman Catholic church, a group of gay Italian clergy has issued an open letter that criticizes recent Vatican guidelines on homosexuality.

Signed by 39 priests, the letter is a rare demonstration of open dissent in the heart of Roman Catholicism, where public debate over the new Vatican guidelines has been relatively muted.

The letter was posted late Wednesday (Dec. 14) on the Web sites of Gaynews.it, an Italian gay rights news outlet, and Adista, a leftist Catholic news agency that leaked the guidelines days before their official publication in late November.

According to Ludovica Eugenio, an Adista staffer, the identities of those who signed, 26 diocesan priests and 13 others from religious orders, were not made public out of concern that doing so would jeopardize their standing in the church.

In their letter, the priests said the guidelines on homosexual candidates to the priesthood undermine the status of active priests with homosexual orientation.

“We feel like children abandoned and unloved by a church that we promised our fidelity and love,” the group wrote.

“Our struggles to live in chastity are no greater than those of heterosexuals, because homosexuality is not a synonym for inconstancy or of uncontrollable instincts,” the letter stated.

The Vatican guidelines, known as an Instruction, says that “unjust discrimination” against gays “should be avoided.”

But the document bars candidates for the priesthood with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” a term drawn from decades of church teaching that regards homosexuality as a condition akin to a mental disorder. Candidates with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” are “objectively disordered” and “in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women,” the guidelines state.

“As men and priests we feel wounded by this absolutely gratuitous affirmation,” the group wrote. “We are not sexually sick, and the homosexual tendency has not made a dent in our mental health or our moral and human gifts.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

In Italy, where open homosexuality is rare, the question of gays in the Catholic priesthood has been largely perceived as a phenomenon unique to the United States clergy.

But observers note that the new guidelines could have the unintended effect of energizing members of the Italian clergy who previously played down their homosexual orientation.

“In raising the issue, the Holy See has probably energized a reaction among gay priests who have lived a good celibate life,” said Alberto Melloni, a church historian with the University of Modena.

The number of gay priests in Italy is unknown. But Sandro Magister, a Vatican analyst for the Italian newsweekly L’espresso, notes that the number of gays of the Italian clergy is probably similar to that of the U.S.

“There are church officials that are known to have such orientation who are under the eyes of the public,” he said. “They are not clandestinely part of the church. They are public figures with fairly high profile roles.”

The letter also accused the Vatican of scapegoating gay priests for the clerical sex abuse scandal in the United States and elsewhere.

“One has the sensation that this document was born as a reaction to the recent cases of pedophilia that have occurred in churches of the United States and Brazil,” the group wrote.

Some churchmen have linked the sex abuse scandal to the perceived spread of homosexuality in the priesthood. A study commissioned by the U.S. Bishops Conference found that most sex abuse victims since 1950 were adolescent boys.

“The homosexual tendency is absolutely not synonymous with pedophilia and the mere idea of being seen as pedophiles is intolerable for us,” the group wrote. “Instead, we consider our homosexuality an asset, because it helps us to share in the alienation and suffering of so many people.”

The letter also stated that many in the group became aware of their homosexuality following their ordination. That claim challenges a key premise of the guidelines, which instruct church authorities to screen for homosexuality in seminaries. It also warns candidates against making “gravely dishonest” attempts to hide their homosexuality.

MO/JL END RNS