[Mrs. Don-o]

Confusingly, the distinction between "Eastern Catholic" and "Western Catholic" is no longer strictly geographic, that is, there are Easter Catholics all over the West (for instance, 2 out of 3 Maronites live outside of Lebanon.) And (to a lesser extent) there are Western Catholics in the East.

So it's now a distinction between "rites" and not between geographical jurisdictions or even languages.

Of the 22 Churches which comprise Catholicism, 21 will ordain married men to the priesthood. There is just one which has an (almost exclusively) celibate priesthood, and that is the Latin Church. (Which also, confusingly, no longer retains Latin as its predominant liturgical language.)

This is probably more info than you wanted, but my point is that it doesn't seem unreasonable for ONE of the 22 united Catholic Churches to retain its distinctive celibate priesthood. It's for men who have a vocation to celibacy. In the Latin church, married men with a vocation to serve as clergy, become deacons.

Either way, it's a choice, and a vocation. It is imposed on nobody.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

No not really. If you want to choose the priesthood as your vocation, you are required to make a vow of celibacy and forego marriage and children.

But...what we have discovered in this interesting discussion is that there are loopholes. There are ways around it. You could be married. You could have children. You could first be ordained an Episcopalian, or an Orthodox or an Eastern Catholic rite priest and then convert to being a regular Latin Rite Catholic priest and keep your wife and family. That is the current formula for being both a Catholic priest and a married man. Cumbersome to be sure, but that alone is slowly breaking down the celibacy requirements.