Pope approves barring gay seminarians

Catholic World News is reporting that Benedict has approved a proposed instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education that homosexual men, even if celibate, should not be admitted to seminaries.

Now what do we do? It doesn't help that the CWN report seems to almost gloat, or at least suggest that this entirely makes sense. For example,

The pending release of the Instruction, in the face of certain criticism from liberal forces in America and Western Europe, demonstrates the determination of the Vatican to improve the quality of priestly ministry, and to protect the Church from some of the scandals that have recently shaken the Catholic community-- and no doubt deterred many men from entering priestly training.

Yes, all those gay men were ruining the quality. Sorry, that's snippier than I usually intend to be, but I'm kind of not so happy right now.

Updated 9:26 pm
Newsday also has a story reporting on the CWN story. It seems that Catholic World News might not be an entirely objective source (!), which is significant in that while everyone knew that the pope was looking at the document, the Vatican hasn't made a formal pronouncement yet. CWN's website describes it as staffed by lay catholic journalists and states that it "seeks to provide loyal Catholics and other interested readers with all the daily news that affects their Church and their faith." One with more suspicious motives (not me, of course), might wonder if the good folks of CWN were trying to push somebody's hand; if it's been reported that the pope has banned something, it would take a lot more publicity and explanation as to why the pope was now "in favor of" ordaining homosexuals if the initial reports were wrong...