????? I'm not convinced.
After spending 10 years in San Francisco, I observed that there are at least two kinds of gays.....those who choose it as a sexual preference and those who are truly born with some gene that makes them gay. Those choosing homosexuality seem mentally ill, at least to me. The born-gay fellows are in a different category altogether. They may still be total jerks, of course, and wildly promiscuous. But conceivably they might decide to simply set aside any thoughts of sexuality and behave in a most prudent and proper manner, same as heterosexual priests who set aside their sexual urges.
Giving up sex is extremely difficult for gay or straight men. But if they are intelligent, educated, and making their vocational choices with God's grace, I really would care about their "orientation" if they remain celibate, as their vows require.
OTOH, no one on this thread is as rabidly against gay-agenda priests as I. I want that behavior to end immediately and have no sympathy for those who are lenient with such miscreants.
I realize that a celibate gay man may be outright saintly in his effort to repair his condition. Certainly, there is no sin he is committing. But even a saint may not be qualified to be a priest. For example, a woman saint cannot be a priest. There is one man in Los Angeles who has no hands due to thelidamyde. He is renowned for the fact that he played a guitar with his feet to the late Pope. Well, that man wanted to study for priesthood and the seminary and ultimately the Vatican said that he cannot be a priest without hands. "One needs a finger and a thumb", as he himself put it.
A chaste gay man is in this category. Through no fault of his own, he cannot enter into the spiritual marriage with the Church, because he cannot enter into a bodily marriage with a woman.