Sipe estimates that half of all priests are honoring their vows of celibacy. Specialists studying sexuality in priesthood Law of Boston would not speak to reporters after Mass, and Law's spokeswoman, Donna M. ''But you cannot be in this field.''Īlthough scholars have established no connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, the Vatican's comments were apparently provoked by the fact that many of the victims of clergy abuse in Boston, as elsewhere, have been adolescent boys, and not the prepubescent children who are victimized by the standard pedophile.Įfforts to reach Navarro-Valls in Rome yesterday were unsuccessful, and another Vatican spokesman, Ciro Benedettini, declined to comment. ''That does not imply a final judgment on people with homosexuality,'' Navarro-Valls also said. He said ''people with these inclinations just cannot be ordained'' and suggested that just as a marriage can be annulled if the husband turns out to be gay, so the ordination of gay men might also be made invalid. Navarro-Valls made his comments in an interview published yesterday in The New York Times. ''Discriminating against orientation is not going to solve the problem.'' And it's very much against the tradition of the church many saints had a gay orientation, and many popes had gay orientations,'' Sipe said. ''It would mean the resignation of at least a third of the bishops of the world. Sipe has been studying the sexuality of priests for 25 years and has written three books on the subject. Richard Sipe, a former priest and psychotherapist. ''If they were to eliminate all those who were homosexually oriented, the number would be so staggering that it would be like an atomic bomb it would do the same damage to the church's operation,'' said A. The comments by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the chief spokesman for Pope John Paul II, were made at a time when a growing body of research suggests that a large proportion of Catholic priests are gay, and scholars who study sexuality and the priesthood said any effort to bar them would lead to a dramatic reduction in the number of priests in the United States. He Vatican, in its first comments on the clergy sexual abuse crisis, declared this weekend that gay men should not be ordained as priests.