While Orthodoxy allows married men to become priests, it draws its bishops from the monasteries. It would be very difficult for Anglicanism to adopt that approach as there are very few monasteries from which to draw leaders. And therein lies the inherint problem: Catholicism and Orthodoxy are based on a monastic system while Anglicanism and the rest of Protestantism are based on a congregational system. Anglican bishops are married because they are drawn from congregational leadership. Catholic and Orthodox bishops are not married because they are drawn from a monastic order.
Dear bobjam,
"Catholic and Orthodox bishops are not married because they are drawn from a monastic order."
Well, in the Latin rite, Catholic priests are drawn from the whole of the priesthood, as the priesthood is celibate (with a few exceptions).
Anyway, whatever the reasons, I don't think that Pope Benedict would accept married bishops. As otherwise noted, a celibate episcopacy is a very old tradition, and is uniformly accepted by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, east and west.
I believe that Pope Benedict would prefer not to create unnecessary obstacles to reunion with the Orthodox (there are plenty of real, necessary obstacles, why create unnecessary ones?), and widening the communion of the Catholic Church to include married bishops would likely be a very big obstacle to reunion with Orthodoxy.
If there were reunion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, a succeeding pope could take up the question with the other Patriarchs, or, depending on the terms of reunion, even possibly have the freedom of action to accept communion with groups who have married bishops. But I don't believe that this pope, Benedict XVI, will act unilaterally in that regard. It is possible that, failing reunion with the Orthodox, another pope might accept reunion with folks who have married bishops, but not this one.
It would be hard to claim that the issue of married bishops is fundamentally doctrinal, since St. Paul refers to bishops as folks who may only have been married once. However, it would be a change of 16 or 17 centuries of actual practice, east and west. I don't think that this pope would initiate that change outside the fuller context of reunion with the Orthodox.
sitetest