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My wife, an ex-Catholic whose family are still "occasional" Catholics, says that in her experience the insulation of the R/C priesthood from the realities of family life lends itself to this kind of thinking.

The priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, pope, etc., live in a sort of "altered" reality where the notion of protecting children, and the protective instincts that people have toward children, are secondary to the protection of their insular society.

In effect, the supposed "benefit" of a celibate clergy--which actually has its roots in the Platonian ideal of the corruption of the physical world and the absolute baseness of carnality even in the bonds of matrimony--of the objectivity they allegedly bring to their vocation is a liability when it comes to truly understanding intimate issues of family and children.

N.B.: I know I'm going to be flamed big-time for this, but please, reasoning and thinking Catholics, understand I'm simply putting forth a point of view from the outside looking in.

I hope that your Church is able to heal this terrible wound.

No one has taught me more about marriage and family life and even about an authentic appreciation for the gift of the sexual act than this pope.

I was married for a half dozen years and had several children when I stumbled upon his thoughts on these topics.

He spent the first 20 years of his priesthood becoming very very close to families and observed them closely and talked with them at great length about the most important things in life. Thus he has great insight - and the insight of an unbiased but very interested observer.

His insights helped me realize just how great a thing marriage and family are and how amazing the marital embrace - sex - was meant to be.

I can only laugh - not in a mean way, for I understand how easily one can draw such a conclusion - at those who think a celibate man (one who has forsaken marriage and family and sex not because those things are bad but to do something ELSE for God) does not understand that which he freely gave up in exchange for priesthood merely because he does not have/live them. It is like saying a male gynecologist cannot treat a woman patient because he has a different body.

My wife, an ex-Catholic whose family are still "occasional" Catholics, says that in her experience the insulation of the R/C priesthood from the realities of family life lends itself to this kind of thinking. The priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, pope, etc., live in a sort of "altered" reality where the notion of protecting children, and the protective instincts that people have toward children, are secondary to the protection of their insular society.

This is simply nonsense. Priests hear confessions regularly and are quite familiar with the ways of the world. In fact, most of the priests that I have known personally have been uncommonly wise and holy men. The few clinkers that I have known were tainted by garden-variety liberalism.

Again, this is absolute nonsense. The Church led the fight against gnostic heresies which devalued the bodily aspect of the human person and the Church rejected these heresies dogmatically. Priestly celibacy is a discipline (a pastoral rule, not a dogmatic teaching) that is based in Scripture:

I would that all men were even as myself; but every one hath his proper gift from God .... But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they so continue, even as I...
But I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: and he is divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit. But she that is married thinketh on the things of this world how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your profit, not to cast a snare upon you, but for that which is decent and which may give you power to attend upon the Lord without impediment. (I Cor., vii, 7-8 and 32-35.)