It is very important to understand that the Church is not speaking about people who simply have same-sex attractions. She’s speaking about those who have several serious impairments:
- Actively gay
- Embrace or support the gay lifestyle/culture
- Deep seated homosexual tendencies (this means more than same-sex attractions. This is a person who identifies himself or herself as gay). When this becomes your identity, then there is a very serious problem here. Heterosexuals do not identify themselves as heterosexuals. They identify themselves as males and females. A person with same-sex attraction must be able to see himself as a whole person, not identify himself by his sexual attraction. Unless he can see himself as a whole person, he cannot relate to members of both genders in a healthy and appropriate way.
- Those who struggle to remain chaste. If this is a struggle for the individual, he or she is not a good candidate for either the priesthood or the religious life. Everyone struggles with temptations. The Church is not saying that a priest or religious must be someone who never struggles with temptations. That would be unrealistic. The Church is speaking about the person for whom sexual temptation are a cross.
As to the publicity of the attraction there is something to be considered here. Someone posted it above. If one is celibate and comfortable in one’s celibate state, why should one’s sexual feelings come out into the public forum? Whethere you have same-sex attraction or opposite-sex attractions, this is not a topic for public discussion.
The OP also asked about someone who had come out earlier in life and now wants to become a priest or a brother. That person is disqualified. The very act of coming out is a statement that says to the world that I embrace my sexual attractions, am proud of it, and I don’t care what the world thinks. Otherwise, the person would have exercised some discretion. The act of coming out reveals a deep seated homosexual orientation as well as some difficulties with discretion. Such a person is not a good candidate for either priesthood or religious life.
The Church still loves this person and wants him or her to remain a part of the Church. But the person has identified himself according to his sexual attractions, rather than as a whole man or whole woman. That’s the whole problem with the gay movement. When you identify yourself as gay, you’re making a public display of your sexuality as if that were the defining trait in your humanity and you’re throwing off the balance in your life, because you’re much more than just a sexual being. This is what the Church calls “deep seated”. It becomes an identity, rather than a sexual attraction. I explain it as a sexual orientation that is blown out of proportion.
It’s a very complex issue and there is no perfect answer. Even the guidelines that the Church provides for religious orders and diocesan seminaries, she’s very careful to point out that novice masters for religious and formators of seminarians must really watch what happens in the day to day life in community. In the end, there is not perfect answer that fits every individual. The same struggles with sexuality can be found in heterosexuals. What a formator is looking at is whether there is a struggle. If there is, then the perosn is not suited for this life or for the priesthood, unless the struggle disappears for at least three years, I believe is the number.
The best way to change social perceptions is from within a group. Hopefully more gays will join the church and change a few minds.