No, that's like saying there's a pre-marital sex problem in middle schools because we don't let kids get married at the age of 13.
Celibacy is a discipline, sure, but there's a theological and a practical importance for priests to take the vow. Since the priest is acting 'in the person" of Christ, the only bride he should take is the Church. In the same way, a nun commits herself as a Bride of Christ and takes no man for a husband. Practically speaking, the priest cannot fulfill his duties to the Church (and not just saying daily Mass, but going to hospitals to give last rites, going to wakes, conducting funerals and baptisms, visiting shut-ins, teaching in classrooms, going on required retreats, etc.) while at the same time being a parent/husband. I know it was done a long time ago, and that the orthodox still allow it, but this is just something Catholics need to accept as a fact. The real issue is that sexual impurity is epidemic - across all groups and boundaries. So Satan has a very ripe target in this day and age, and if he can "bag" a priest, a bishop, a diocese -- and drive people away from the Church, he'll come out guns blazing. On the other hand, if priests are allowed to marry, I guarantee the issue would become rampant adultery and divorce and men voluntarily leaving the priesthood because they can't even be chaste in their marital relations. Humanity, in general is growing more and more sinful, and it would be foolish to think it doesn't have ramifications inside the Church.
So, ending priestly celibacy doesn't seem to be the core issue. The core issue is that the Church spent about thirty years ordaining weak, homosexually- inclined individuals instead of real men to the priesthood. As the priesthood became more and more "feminized", less and less masculine, God-fearing men wanted to join the crowd of perverts that were let into the seminaries. Anecdotally, I understand that this has changed drastically in the last five or six years. The young priests (and those in formation) that I have met in this time span are of a different fabric, and it's tangibly apparent. These guys mean business. They're not "hiding out". They're straight, they're very masculine, and they are extremely humbled by their calling.
All that said. The matter at hand. I can't wrap my mind around what Bishop Finn was waiting for. And the reason I can't wrap my mind around it, is that he's one of the no-nonsense new breed of bishops. What he did, I don't think he did out of malice. I don't think he was trying to be conniving. I think he made a terrible, inexplicable error in judgment, and he's publicly admitted as much. In the environment of distrust that has been created over these terrible crimes, it baffles me that, from even a strictly cold, legal, cover-your-butt standpoint, the police weren't called immediately. Absolutely baffling. I am frustrated and horrified that such a mistake was made. But I believe it's way over the top to take this to a criminal level against Bishop Finn. He doesn't have a "pattern" of doing things like this. And to the point that others have made - let's see them take up the torches against Planned Parenthood's shielding of statutory rapists if the state wants to present itself as a purveyor of impartial justice.
You bring many good points, and I don’t claim to have an inner knowledge of Catholicism, just some relatives who are perturbed deeply by the scandals. More so the cover-ups by some in the hierarchy than by the individual failures...
Celibacy has a scriptural basis ( the nazarite sect), and Paul eschewed it’s virtues as well. Is it a requirement? I think not, but won’t condemn those who advocate it.
Therer are plenty of fallen married pastors in the Protestant world; adulterers, homsexuals, pedophiles, etc.
What you don’t see is a systemic cover-up, perhaps because the systems aren’t nearly as big as the RCC. Also, I do believe the RCC may be on the downhill side of this, as you suggest. That is what is confounding about this case- what was Finn thinking?
Thanks for you thoughtful post.