As a Protestant, my understanding may not be correct. I was under the impression that Christ's celibacy was part of the reason, but that the other part was Paul's admonition to remain unmarried if you were to be a preacher of the Gospel, so you would not get tied to earthly things, but could devote your entire life to the Lord.
From my perspective, there is a problem with child molestation within the Catholic Church, and possibly a network. While this needs to be cleaned out, the incidence of child molestation within the Church has been sensationalized because it is so shocking and because it is a method of nullifying the Church as a voice against homosexual conduct and child molestation, the former is now legalized and the latter is well on it's way to being legalized.
There is no advantage to having Priests marry. It is simply one of the cause celebs of the moment. Just as some have joined the Priesthood to cover their child molestation tendencies, so do some marry to cover their sins. The answer is a strict code of conduct and strict accountability. You can't accommodate evil in the hopes of maintaining the status quo. It is just the foothold which evil needs to move forward.
Priests were marrying up until 1100s (got my estimate wrong). The issue was loss of RC Church lands and properties. Everything else was just an excuse, or maybe some misogyny.
http://pages.ivillage.com/imhabba63/marriedcatholicpriest/id75.html
This is the relevant part:
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In the 10th and 11th centuries, the priesthood in the West, including the papacy itself, had reached a nadir of corruption. Clerical marriage and concubinage were prevalent, and church lands and properties were being lost through inheritance to the children of clergy.
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