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Not being religious, I could never understand why the Catholic church prohibited its priests from marrying. In traditional marriages the priest refers to the union as "in Holy Matrimony" but yet priests are forbidden.

As I stated above, I'm not religious but being a FOX news fan, I would always stop to listen when they had their religious contributor Fr. Jonathan Morris on their program. He was like a close friend talking to me on an even level about God and I would listen.

Then when he announced that he was giving up the priesthood I said whoa, what's this all about? Then not long afterwards he announced he was getting married.......may God bless him. Thank you Fr. Morris for your insight over the years.

Under Paul VI, many priests were given permission to leave the priesthood and get married, and remain in good standing with the church--I know of 2 or 3 such cases. But under John Paul II, apparently such permission was never given (or extremely rarely), so priests who wanted to leave to get married could not do so and remain in good standing. A pastor at my current parish left to get married--some time later he attended Mass with his wife (a former nun, I think), but neither of them received Communion.

I think nuns were treated more leniently. After my uncle's first wife died, he married a former nun in a church wedding (I'm not sure when she quit being a nun, under which papacy).

In the early centuries Catholic bishops and priests were often married men, and today married Anglican priests have been allowed to become Catholic priests while continuing to live with their wives, and the church ordains permanent deacons who are married, but maintains the rule of clerical celibacy for priests for cradle Catholics.