I really do not think celibacy is healthy , especially for any one who does marriage counselling.
Tia
Father John is a gift from God.
Even our grandsons want to be alter boys, this is their decision.
BTW, I do not care for girl servers. But that is another story.
Again, Andrew Greeley, the notorious sociologist, would not agree with you..
As for counseling, one social worker here was told off by a client who said she "really didn't understand" because she never suffered from her problem. The social worker replied: I see criminals, people getting divorce, spousal abusers, drug addicts and neurotics all the time. If I had experience in every problem I treated, I wouldn't be a good counseler.
Greeley claims that because a priest is celibate, he is approachable by women who have problems and therefore makes a better counseler. (greeley says that we need women priests so men can also have such a counseller, but that is another discussion).
The idea of celibacy is about holiness.
People say that Catholic priests don't marry, and that is true. But Orthodox priests don't marry either: Both Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholic churches, however, do allow married men to become priests.
And celibate monks are common in Hinduism and Buddhism
The reason is twofold: First, an unmarried person can spend full time to work for God ( I wwas a missionary and turned down marriage proposals in school so I could do this work. Now that I am married, I have to put my husband first)
And the second reason is that there is time for deep prayer. The crisis in the priesthood (and in many religious orders) is not about marriage, but because holiness and prayer were displaced by "social work" as the main reason to be for the priesthood and religious life...to translate this into marriage, it's like saying that cleaning the house and working is the reason to be for the married life, and so it's okay to ignore making love with one's spouse...I see many marriages on the rocks because people ignore the fact that love is the basis of marriage, just like love of God is the basis for the priesthood, and that one needs to make that relationship a priority