VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Friday the Roman Catholic Church, whose clerics have been hit by sex scandals, needed to improve the selection and training of priests and nuns to ensure they live by the rules.
The challenges facing the Church and its priests and nuns around the world were outlined in a 57-page document called "Starting Afresh From Christ, a Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third Millennium."
While it mostly had a religious theme and made no direct mention of recent scandals, the document spoke of how priests and nuns had to be chosen carefully if they were expected to live up to the rules of their vocation, including celibacy.
It did, however, say the "difficulties and questioning which religious life is experiencing today" could give rise to new hope.
The document, known as an "instruction," said superiors of religious orders had to be extra careful and take their time in selecting who was to be admitted into the religious life.
It said they had to exercise what it called "peaceful discernment" in screening candidates in order "to verify the authenticity of the vocation" and weed out "possible contradictions" early on.
"Young people need to be challenged to meet the high ideals of a radical following of Christ and the profound demands of holiness ..." it said.
The document, approved by Pope John Paul, said candidates for the religious life had to accept fully what it called "the evangelical councils of chastity, poverty and obedience."
Though it appeared to be purely a coincidence, the document was issued as U.S. Catholic bishops met in Dallas to address the sexual abuse of children by priests.
The various sexual scandals that have hit the Roman Catholic Church recently have led to calls for a change in the rule on celibacy, but the Church insists that there is no link between it and pedophilia.
CELIBACY IMPORTANT
The document said the rules of poverty, chastity and obedience were "a powerful antidote to the pollution of spirit, life and culture," adding that modern society had presented new challenges to priests and nuns to keep their vows.
"These are real problems which should not be taken lightly. Consecrated persons are not alone in living the tension between secularism and an authentic life of faith, between the fragility of humanity itself and the power of grace. This is the experience of all members of the Church," it said.
The document said no one could ignore that the life of priests and nuns "has not seemed to have been held in its proper consideration" lately.
It said an "ongoing religious crisis" in society had made it important for priests and nuns "to look for new forms of presence and to raise not a few questions regarding the meaning of their identity and future."
In Dallas, bishops were poised to adopt a tough national policy that would expel any cleric who ever molested a child.
Revelations of the apparent cover-up, starting in January with the case of a single priest in Boston, triggered a scandal that has shaken the church to its core, costing four U.S. bishops and some 250 priests their jobs.
Bishops in Poland, Ireland, Canada and Australia have also been forced to quit over their involvement in sex scandals.