BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: The Vatican this week formally published its long-awaited document on whether homosexuals should be admitted to seminaries and the priesthood. It barred men "who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture." Immediately in the U.S. sharp debate broke out, even publicly among some U.S. bishops, about what those words mean.

Father Tom Reese is the former editor of the Jesuit magazine AMERICA and a longtime observer of the Vatican and the U.S. bishops. He joins us from Northern California, where he's a visiting scholar at Santa Clara University.

Father Reese, welcome. Does this new ruling bar all gay men from admission to seminaries or not?

Reverend THOMAS J. REESE, S.J. (Visiting Scholar, Santa Clara University): Well, it depends who you ask. Conservatives are delighted with this document because they believe that it does. Liberals are very upset with this document because they agree with the conservatives: they believe that it does bar all homosexual priests -- homosexuals -- from the seminary. On the other hand, there's a lot of bishops in the middle -- archbishops and cardinals in the United States and elsewhere who have publicly said, "No, this is not what it says. There is room for good, celibate, homosexual men to be ordained and to be in these seminaries, as long as they can be celibate, and be good priests."

ABERNETHY: And how could anybody test to see whether a person, a candidate for the seminary has "deep-seated homosexual tendencies"?

Rev. REESE: I don't see how they can because, first of all, we don't know what the words mean. And then, secondly, there's no psychological test that can definitively show whether someone's a homosexual or not.

ABERNETHY: So is there wiggle room, then, from diocese to diocese? Each bishop can interpret this for himself?

Rev. REESE: Absolutely. I think that each bishop is going to have to read the document and make up his own mind about what it means.

ABERNETHY: Do you think the Vatican intended that?

Rev. REESE: Well, that's a good question. I think there may have been disagreements in the Vatican itself about this document, and as a result they wrote it in such a way that different bishops could understand it in different ways.

ABERNETHY: I'm interested in the immediate likely effects, first of all on applicants who may feel a real call to the priesthood but also who may have some uncertainty about their orientation.