3 Bishops Join Opposition to Vatican Policy : Religion: Clerics add their names to statement repudiating legal discrimination against homosexuals.

Three Roman Catholic bishops have joined more than 1,500 Catholics in signing a statement repudiating a Vatican document that supports legal discrimination against gays and lesbians in some cases.

The statement opposing the Vatican view, circulated by New Ways Ministry of Mt. Rainier, Md., will be published Nov. 13 in the independent weekly National Catholic Reporter.

Among the signers of the dissenting statement were Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Va.; Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of Detroit, and retired Bishop Charles A. Buswell of Pueblo, Colo. None of the bishops was available for comment Friday, but representatives for Sullivan and Gumbleton confirmed a New Ways release listing them as signers.

It is unusual for bishops to publicly oppose Vatican policy. The action by the three bishops comes amid increasingly tough language from Rome about homosexuality and against the backdrop of current church leadership, which has little tolerance for dissent.

New Ways Ministry describes itself as an “educational and bridge-building ministry of reconciliation between the Catholic gay and lesbian community and the Catholic Church.”

In July, a Vatican statement was sent to all U.S. bishops claiming that in some circumstances “it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account, for example, in the consignment of children to adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or coaches and in military recruitment.”

The document, “Some Considerations Concerning the Catholic Response to Legislative Proposals in the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons,” was somewhat unusual for a Vatican statement because it was unsigned and aimed at a largely political question.

The July statement followed up on a 1986 letter on the subject from the Vatican’s chief doctrinal office. That letter described homosexuality as an “objective disorder,” or one that is inherently wrong.

The New Ways statement takes the opposing view, supporting a full range of civil rights for homosexuals and stating that gay and lesbian people are “numbered among our finest teachers and coaches.” Gay and lesbian youths, the statement says, need such role models. It also argues that homosexuals, “both individually and as partners, have provided loving and nurturing homes for many children.”