Pope Francis reportedly warned Italian bishops this week to vet carefully applicants to the priesthood and reject anyone they suspected might be homosexual.
"Keep an eye on the admissions to seminaries, keep your eyes open," the pope was quoted as saying by newspaper La Stampa's Vatican Insider service. "If in doubt, better not let them enter."
The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on the remarks, which Vatican Insider and Il Messaggero said were made at a closed-door gathering on Monday.
Francis' meeting with Italian bishops came just a day after a Chilean man who suffered clerical sexual abuse quoted the Pope as telling him in a private conversation that God had made him gay and loved him that way.
The Vatican declined to comment on the report which touched off fierce media speculation that Francis was softening the church stance on homosexuality. It has previously condemned homosexuality as an immoral disorder if actively practised.
In a 2005 document, released under Francis's predecessor Pope Benedict, the Vatican said the church could admit into the priesthood those who had clearly overcome homosexual tendencies for at least three years.
But it said practicing homosexuals and those with "deep-seated" gay tendencies and those who support a gay culture should be barred.
Benedict wrote in 2005 that homosexuality was "a strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil".
