A VATICAN document issued last week, which recommended that seminary candidates undergo "psychological evaluations", was as much about reassuring the laity that such matters are being taken seriously by the church, Fr Patrick Rushe has said.
The Irish Catholic Church's national co-ordinator for diocesan vocations said the document from the Congregation for Catholic Education was more broadly focused than just on sexual issues.
"It encourages psychological profiling in the broader sense, as a help" in assisting candidates for the priesthood, he said.
"We find that most guys coming to us need development of some kind, though not as it was say 20 years ago."
More often, these days, seminarians were men who had come through ''their own journey of faith. They may have been non-practising for a period. They may have gone from fervour to non-practise, only to find fervour again.They may be older, with a wider experience. They are all the better for that in many cases," he said.
Most seminaries "now encourage a period of reflection", where such men are concerned. It is part of a process, and issues dealt with were "much broader than sex or orientation", he said.
He felt that today's seminarians were more realistic. "They may have had other professions and been in relationships. They know what life is like."
But, he also felt, you could not replace the idealism of youth. Many of today's seminarians were also of "better quality" than in the past, and had "a deeper sense of service. Clericalism is not as prominent now [among seminarians]".
Currently there are 87 men training to become priests in Ireland at seminaries in Rome, Spain, Britain and Maynooth.
This year 14 men were ordained to serve as Catholic priests in Ireland, compared to nine in 2007.
Fr Rushe was commenting in the context of a document issued by the Vatican's congregation last Thursday.
It recommended that seminarians undergo "psychological evaluations" with regard to potential personality disturbances as well as to their ability to live a celibate life. It followed on from another document issued by the congregation in 2005 which said the Catholic Church cannot ordain men who are active homosexuals or who have "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies.
The new document argued that if seminary students demonstrated areas of grave immaturity, then "the path of formation will have to be interrupted". Such areas of "immaturity" it indicated included deep-seated homosexual tendencies, unclear sexual identity, difficulty with the celibate life, excessive rigidity of character and lack of freedom in relations.
It said special attention should be given to ensuring that celibacy was not "a burden so heavy" that it compromised a candidate's affective and relational equilibrium.
As for assessing a candidate's ability to live a celibate life, it suggested that "it is not enough to be sure that he is capable of abstaining from genital activity" but that it is also necessary "to evaluate his sexual orientation".
The document said that psychological tests could be useful with a view not only to identifying troubled candidates but also in helping seminarians through their vocational journey, especially if the candidate needs to overcome psychological wounds.
At a news conference in the Vatican, prefect for Catholic education Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, said the use of psychological tests should become neither "obligatory" nor "ordinary practice".
