Pope worries about homosexuality in priesthood

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has been quoted in a soon-to-be published book as saying that having gays in the clergy “is something that worries me” and remarking that some societies are considering homosexuality a “fashionable” lifestyle.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera’s website Saturday ran excerpts of the book in the form of an interview that Francis gave about religious vocations. Francis was quoted as describing homosexuality within the walls of seminaries, convents and other religious places where clergy live as “a very serious question.”

“In our societies, it even seems homosexuality is fashionable. And this mentality, in some way, also influences the life of the church,” Francis was quoted as telling his interviewer, a Spanish-born missionary priest, Fernando Prado.

The book will be published in 10 languages next week. Its Spanish title is “La Fuerza de la vocacion” (“The Strength of Vocation”).

Francis reiterated past Vatican pronouncements about the attention that must be given to selecting men for admission to seminaries, saying “we must very much take care of human and sentimental maturity” when training future priests.

Separately, the Italian news agency ANSA quoted Francis in the book as commenting on a clergyman who had told him that having gays in Catholic religious housing “isn’t so grave” because it’s “only an expression of affection.”

That reasoning “is in error,” Francis said. “In consecrated life and priestly life, there is no place for this kind of affection.”

Andrew Medichini The Associated Press Pope Francis arrives Saturday at the Vatican for an audience for members of the Italian dioceses of Molfetta and Ugento-Santa Maria di Leuca.