"What sacrifice did Adam offer? Understand that priesthood is meaningless before the Fall."
It was the sacrifice that Adam failed to offer that is probably more to the point!
However, his priesthood is not at all meaningless as it sets the precedent for ALL priesthood in Holy Scripture: PRIESTHOOD IS FATHERHOOD. Holy Scripture, at one level, is nothing more than the account of how priesthood is given, lost, and restored - down through the Patriarchs, Israel to Christ.
Noah, Shem (Melchizedek), Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were ALL priests and they were ALL married.
Christ is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek and Melchizedek himself was married, so how can there be a theological incompatibility between marriage and priesthood?
"from Leo the Great to John Paul II saw a deep contradiction between priesthood and marriage."
Well, JPII must be a hypocrite then because he appended his signature to the document which contained this statement at an Ecumenical Council:
"Indeed, it (celibacy) IS NOT DEMANDED BY THE VERY NATURE OF THE PRIESTHOOD as is apparent from the practice of the early Church(35) and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches. where, besides those who with all the bishops, by a gift of grace, choose to observe celibacy, there are also married priests of highest merit. This holy synod, while it commends ecclesiastical celibacy, in no way intends to alter that different discipline which legitimately flourishes in the Eastern Churches. It permanently exhorts all those who have received the priesthood and marriage to persevere in their holy vocation so that they may fully and generously continue to expend themselves for the sake of the flock commended to them.(36)"
Presbyterium Ordinis n.16
For those of you who think Vat II was an infallible Ecumenical Council, then this should settle the question once and for all.
For those who have their doubts, then here is one more piece of amunition against the Council which JPII appears to be openly contradicting and therefore it is time he tore the whole thing up and admitted it isn't the source of all light and holiness that he pretends it is!
Christ set ip His church to be His bride. No one before him did that. Hence, it is irrelevant from the Christian theological standpoint what Jewish priests did. I only commented about Adam because he plainly is no priest of any kind, -- contrary to your previous rash comment.
I know that married priests are tolerated in the Latin Rite. The Pope's statement means nothing more than an expression of such tolerance. For theological reasons one needs to look deeper than that and, with Leo the Great, realize that priest is married to the Church in a very real way. My thesis is not that every married priest commits a form of adultery, - clearly not, -- but that while circumstances may permit an exception, -- somethign the East recognized early in the case of parish priests, and the West in the case of converted priests, -- married priesthood may not be the norm.