The query arises each few years, whether or not in response to a brand new survey, a church doc, a remark from a pope or bishop, a well known priest leaving the priesthood and declaring his homosexuality, or perhaps a new ebook or movie: Should gay men be accepted into seminaries or be ordained clergymen? Likewise, ought to they be accepted into formation (coaching) applications for spiritual orders? A brand new paper has raised this query once more.
To be clear, after we discuss gay men being ordained as clergymen or accepted into spiritual orders, we’re presuming a lifetime of celibacy (the promise that clergymen make at their ordination) and chastity (the vow members of non secular orders make).
In 2024, the McGrath Institute for Church Life on the University of Notre Dame commissioned a research with the Center for Applied Research within the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University on “how dioceses and seminaries assess seminarian’s suitability for ordination.” The results had been printed in September 2025. As a follow-up, the McGrath Institute convened a three-day convention of consultants to mirror on the research, that very same month.
This week, two authors, the Rev. Thomas V. Berg, who served for a few years as a formator (an individual working in formation) at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, NY; and Timothy G. Lock, a licensed psychiatrist and director of psychological companies additionally at St. Joseph’s Seminary, summarized the findings and set forth their suggestions in a paper referred to as “Do You Know Them to be Worthy? (The title comes from the query requested by an ordaining bishop to the seminary rector or spiritual superior at an ordination Mass.)
The two authors are clear that some ideas are their very own: “At points, the conclusions presented here represent not a simple synthesis of participant opinion, but the authors’ own prudential judgment, shaped by—yet not reducible to—the perspectives offered at our summit gathering.”
Should gay men be accepted into seminaries or be ordained clergymen? Likewise, ought to they be accepted into formation (coaching) applications for spiritual orders?
The doc, subtitled “Twelve Proposals for Bishops, Rectors, Seminary Formation Teams, and Mental Health Professionals in Assessing the Suitability of Men for Holy Orders,” directs 9 of its proposals towards how psychological and mental-health assets can be used extra successfully in seminary formation, and one towards supporting chastity and celibacy formation. Many of the authors’s proposals are smart and nicely researched, specializing in the essential want for a wholesome psychosocial and psychosexual formation for all seminarians. (The doc focuses on seminary formation for diocesan clergymen, moderately than formation in spiritual orders, just like the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines, and so forth.)
However, within the final two proposals the place the subject of homosexuality comes up (known as “same-sex attraction” or “SSA”), the paper makes claims which will strike anybody who has identified celibate gay clergymen as shocking. (As an apart, the authors don’t clarify why they keep away from utilizing the frequent time period “homosexual” or “homosexuality.”)
In 2005, the Vatican’s Congregation for Education issued a document stating that men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” mustn’t be admitted to seminaries or ordained clergymen. Interestingly, the McGrath/CARA survey states that nearly 1 / 4 of the bishops surveyed (22%) “agree” or “strongly agree” that they’re “comfortable ordaining a man who experiences deep-seated same-sex attraction, provided he is firmly committed to celibacy.”
This matches with what I’ve heard from bishops and non secular superiors for the reason that Vatican doc was issued. There appear to be three ways in which bishops perceive the ban on ordaining men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies.” First, as 22% of bishops see it: “deep-seated” signifies that if a person’s homosexuality someway makes it inconceivable for him to reside celibately, he can not be ordained; but when a gay man can reside celibately, he can be ordained. Second, “deep-seated” signifies that if a person sees his sexuality as a very powerful or the defining a part of his life, this is able to preclude ordination. Third, “deep-seated” signifies that if a person is gay, he merely can not be accepted into seminary formation or be ordained.
This is a matter the place plainly the church doesn’t but have a settled judgment in observe: Indeed, a footnote within the report factors out that when requested “how a candidate’s dominant attraction to those of the same sex would impact their judgment of his suitability for Orders,” 48% of bishops would think about it “worrisome, but not by itself disqualifying,” whereas 45% would think about it “alone disqualifying.”
While the authors, to their credit score, acknowledge and worth gay clergymen, they appear to not have explored how these clergymen had been capable of combine their sexuality into fruitful celibate lives and ministries.
During a gathering with Pope Francis in 2024, I spoke with him about this matter and he allowed me to share his response, which is that he knew many “good, holy and celibate” seminarians and clergymen who had been gay. Given the sensitivity of the subject, I requested Francis twice if I might share that publicly. “Why not?” he stated. “I’ve said it before. And it’s what I believe.”
Father Berg and Professor Lock additionally make a distinction between two neologisms: “deep-seated same-sex attraction” and “transitory same-sex attraction.” Sexuality is complicated and many individuals, say psychologists, discover themselves on a sort of spectrum; likewise, some individuals expertise gay sights at an early stage of their lives and later don’t. But the language right here, on “overcoming” homosexuality, is worrisome.
Following this new definition, when any candidate discloses that he experiences SSA, a memo ought to be added to his file indicating that he disclosed his expertise of SSA on that specific date. This date stamp will enable vocation administrators, rectors, and bishops to comply with the seminarian over time and supply him with the suitable means to work towards overcoming his SSA whether it is certainly transitory.
It is one factor to beat temptation or lust; it’s one other to beat one’s general sexuality. My sense is that the authors are talking about what my health-class instructor in junior highschool referred to as a “phase.” But this might simply be misinterpreted as overcoming one’s sexuality general, a harmful proposal.
There is way to be stated for the cautious means that Father Berg and Professor Lock, each of whom have in depth expertise in formation, take a look at these complicated questions, particularly of their honest reward for gay clergymen they’ve identified.
We had been trustworthy about the truth that if such conversations are laborious and uncomfortable, it is usually as a result of many people know brother clergymen who actually expertise SSA—brothers we love, with whom we minister, and who actually have so typically ministered to us, have baptized our youngsters and witnessed our marriages and walked with us within the saddest moments of our lives, and a few of whom have even performed decisive roles in our personal vocational discernment.
But the guts of their method is a view of homosexuality as an immense barrier to dwelling a wholesome life as a priest.
Most of us, at the same time as we all know brother clergymen with SSA, typically additionally know simply how painful and problematic their highway in life has been, making an attempt to wed that attraction with a celibate life-style.
One of the ironies of this paper is the near-exclusive focus, within the proposals coping with the query, on the issue of dwelling a wholesome and mature emotional life as a celibate gay man. While the authors, to their credit score, acknowledge and worth gay clergymen, they appear to not have explored how these clergymen had been capable of combine their sexuality into fruitful celibate lives and ministries.
In reality, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that by means of chastity, gay individuals can reside wholesome lives. The stress between this educating and the default exclusion of gay men from seminary formation isn’t remarked upon. On the one hand, we now have papers, comparable to this one, which say that gay men can not be clergymen due to components that stop them from dwelling wholesome, chaste lives.
In my virtually 40 years as a Jesuit, I’ve identified dozens of celibate gay clergymen who’ve led what Pope Francis referred to as “good, holy and celibate” lives, modeling Jesus’s message of affection and mercy.
On the opposite hand, we now have the Catechism, which says, “Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection” (#2359).
Who else would you need to ordain a priest if not somebody who can “resolutely approach Christian perfection?”
In my virtually 40 years as a Jesuit, I’ve identified dozens of celibate gay clergymen who’ve led what Pope Francis referred to as “good, holy and celibate” lives, modeling Jesus’s message of affection and mercy. Similar to the expertise of Father Berg and Professor Lock, they’ve been for me, and for a lot of of my buddies, non secular administrators, pastors, professors and mentors. And they’ve carried out so in a church that generally ignores, denigrates and even insults them. The most compelling argument for openness to ordaining gay men to the priesthood is the presence of many holy and wholesome gay and celibate clergymen.
Yet there’s an incapability within the church to confess this, for a number of causes: First, an absence of dependable information (which implies correct estimates of the share of gay clergymen is difficult to determine); second, embarrassment on the a part of some church leaders that the priesthood would be seen as a “gay profession” if the true share had been identified; third, embarrassment amongst some gay clergymen about their very own sexuality; fourth, a false conflation between homosexuality and pedophilia; and eventually the persecution confronted by the few gay clergymen who’re extra public about their sexuality, as this New York Times article details. All this conspires to maintain this matter “in the closet.”
But whether or not they’re gay or straight just isn’t as essential as one other query. The actual query is: Can a person mannequin Jesus Christ in his love, mercy and compassion whereas dwelling in trustworthy celibacy?
Thus, it’s an unstated actuality, identified and mentioned in non-public conversations in chanceries, rectories, seminaries and non secular order homes. A number of years in the past, I requested a US seminarian learning in Rome what number of of his fellow seminarians had been gay. “Half of them,” he stated with out hesitation. How many had been open about their sexuality with their non secular administrators or seminary rectors? “Are you kidding?” he stated. “None of them.” He defined that might imply expulsion.
Overall, saying that gay men can not be ordained as clergymen signifies that gay men within the priesthood will both be pushed away from their vocations, or pushed underground in seminaries: the previous a loss for the church, the latter a recipe for catastrophe.
I agree wholeheartedly with Father Berg and Professor Lock that seminary formation (and formation in spiritual orders) wants to incorporate wholesome psychosocial and psychosexual growth. That is, we’d like emotionally mature clergymen. But whether or not they’re gay or straight just isn’t as essential as one other query. The actual query is: Can a person mannequin Jesus Christ in his love, mercy and compassion whereas dwelling in trustworthy celibacy?
The authors’ reply for gay men who really feel referred to as to priesthood appears to be no. With respect for his or her research and expertise, my reply, primarily based on my expertise with many holy and wholesome gay clergymen over the previous 40 years, is sure.
Correction, 7/24/2026: Due to an editorial miscommunication, this text was initially printed with a model of the picture during which the individual within the pews had been eliminated with picture modifying software program. It has been changed with the unedited picture.
