[discostu]

People that train cops are cops, but I see what you're getting at. Yes people that know cops well, have gotten into the heads of cops can have an understanding of them well enough to give them cop related advice. But it takes time. People that have known cops for a year or two won't have developed the understanding. People that have known them for a decade or more, they've got the connection. Which is what leaves priests out in the cold. They just aren't getting the exposure to how marriages work. Part of the problem is they never get to hear about the functional marriages, only the ones on the rocks. Most of it though is time. Priests don't spend all day for 10 years hearing about people's marriage problems and how they've dealth with them. They've got other things to do, things other than marriage to advise their parishioner about.

[st.smith]

Most of it though is time. Priests don't spend all day for 10 years hearing about people's marriage problems and how they've dealth with them. They've got other things to do, things other than marriage to advise their parishioner about.

I will grant you that priests will not have as much experience with the practical aspects of marriage that someone like a marriage counselor would. However, do they need to?

I would argue that a sufficient knowledge of the practical aspects of marriage combined with superior knowledge of the structure of marriage (the ideal of marriage), is more than enough to give excellent advice. If specialized advice is needed one can see a specialist. However, I still hold that it is not the experience of being married that makes one a specialist in counseling, it is experience in counseling married people- whether one is married or not.