IN A startlingly frank article about homosexuality, the Vatican newspaper has urged Catholics to respect gays, saying they too can achieve sanctity in the Church if they abstain from sex.
The article in L'Osservatore Rorriano broke no new ground on the church's teaching that, while homosexual tendencies were not wrong, homosexual acts were sinful.
It also repeated the church teaching that only heterosexual, monogamous marriage was permitted. But its tone was far more compassionate and accepting of homosexuals than the church has been in the past.
"God loves all of us as we are, with our limits, our peculiarities, which can become paths to holiness, said the writer, Dr JeanLouis Brugues, a member of the Catholic Church's International Theological Commission.
"One thing is certain: the homosexual person is called, like all others, to see his talents bear fruit and put them to the service of the human community and the building of the kingdom of God," Dr Brugues wrote.
The article, the last of a 14 part series of reflections on homosexuality and Christianity, was at times stunning in its openn~~ess towards gays, calling for the acceptance of people in their diversity.
It prompted such headlines in the Italian press yesterday as La Repubblica's: "Chaste gays will be saints."
The article said gays should have a role in the church and that role should be a full one, including participation in the sacraments, if they managed to remain chaste.
It said Catholics, including priests, should not show "contempt" for homosexuals but treat them with the same charity as they would other Christians.
A priest who ministers to homosexuals must "overcome his fears and perhaps repress his opposition or even the repulsion that homosexuality inspires in him more or less consciously".
It continued: "Christian communities should be careful to refrain from every expression of contempt toward persons who have this particularity."
Priests who minister to homosexual Catholics should help them come out of the "ghettos" and take part with other Catholics in political, social and church life, the article said.
"Every human being without exception is called with his whole being to salvation, not despite of but because of the paiticular nature of how a personality develops ..."
Arci Gay, Italy's largest homosexual rights group, praised the Vatican for drawing attention to gay rights in the church, but ~critici~~sed that gays remain chaste.