I will always find it odd that the Roman Church allows married priests in all of the Byzantine and Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches in union with Rome and accepts married priests from other denominations.
It’s a curious double standard.
Personally, I prefer the consistency of the Orthodox view on the matter.
You wrote:
“I will always find it odd that the Roman Church allows married priests in all of the Byzantine and Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches in union with Rome and accepts married priests from other denominations.”
You’re wrong. There is no blanket policy of married priests in the Eastern Catholic Churches. If there were then all of their priests in America would be married (except for monks of course). The reality is that few are married.
“Its a curious double standard.”
There’s no double standard. We are talking about different things. And different policies can be applied to different things. The situation of a life-long Catholic is different than that of a convert later in life who is married.
“Personally, I prefer the consistency of the Orthodox view on the matter.”
We are consistent. You are consistent. But neither of us is perfectly consistent. The Orthodox don’t allow married bishops. Either do we of course. But that shows a certain wrinkle to the idea of a married priesthood. (Again, I know they’re almost always monks, but still, they’re priests, they’re not married, and that’s a wrinkle).
The way I look at it, we have no problems with it either way. We have married priests. So do you. We have unmarried priests. So do you.
Oh, and by the way, soon we might have a married bishop. If that’s what it takes to welcome 400,000 Protestants back into the fold, then I’m all for it.
By the way, you might see some changings coming in a decade or two: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE6DA143DF937A25754C0A966958260
Armenian, but interesting: http://www.theorthodoxchurch.info/blogs/news/2008/06/celibate-priests-ordained-in-antelias.html