[joathome]

I have been around many, many priests and Christian brothers. I spend holidays with Christian brothers. I can assure you that being celibate does not make one less "worldly minded". While a married man will devote his time to his wife and children, a single man can still find time to devote much of his time to worldly things--alcohol and gambling being just two. (Gambling is legal in south Louisiana.)

Don't read more into that than is written, either. My point is being single does not make one "heavenly and flock minded".

[Romulus]

Don't read more into that than is written, either.

OK, but don't you either. There are plenty of married men who find ways to get into trouble. How often does marriage cure a bad man?

Those who call for a married clergy seem not to realise that they're calling not so much for the elimination of a source for trouble as the replacement of the old by an entirely new source of problems, which we have neither the experience nor the understanding to address. I'm sure you've known selfish, irresponsible people who thought marriage would fix their lives and make them happy. Did it?

As neocon points out elsewhere in this thread, a contributing factor to clerical abuses is laxness over the discipline of daily prayer, especially the Daily Office. Quite apart from its spiritual benefits, frequent prayer is time-consuming, not necessarily a bad thing. Why don't you ask your clerical friends about it?

[Conservative til I die]

Me and the Jesuit priests at my high school used to enjoy the hobby of sneaking out into hidden nooks and crannies of the school to share a good Marlboro or Camel during school hours.