However, that does not address the issue of whether an unmarried man can really counsel a married couple with the same effectiveness as a married man. All he can do is advise people based on anecdotal evidence from other people. He can NEVER speak from experience and he can never understand the difficulty and pain involved.
Indeed, Scripture says this....
1 Timothy 3:1-5 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
So those who say that the man, by virtue of being a priest and being *married to Christ and the church* is qualified to marriage counsel have it backwards.
It's not the man who chooses to live celibate in commitment to God and knows how to manage the church who is qualified to marriage counsel, but rather the man who is married and knows how to manage his own house who is qualified to manage the church.
Celibacy is not a superior lifestyle as Catholics and the Catholic church posit. It's just different and whatever a person is called to the important thing is to live in obedience to THAT.
If the Catholic Church thinks Priests should be celibate then that is their prerogative. If they think these guys should be like monks who live and breathe their faith 100% of the time, then they should make that clear.
In my personal Christianity I don't see "church leaders" as anything higher than those sitting in the pews, they are also sinners, they should have the job of carrying and preaching the message. If they fail that, they need replaced.
All he can do is advise people based on anecdotal evidence from other people.
He can counsel them based on scripture and church teachings, which is what one expect from a man of the cloth and not a psychologist I think.
Why would people expect more than that?
I would expect unmarried church leaders to be about as good marriage counselors as computer programmers. They can tell us what God wants and how we are expected to behave toward each other, but after that.... *crickets*.
Paul puts it plainly enough for all to understand yet the RCC does the direct opposite. Just another clue as to the falsehood that is the RCC.