I understand the difference and am glad that you do not contest any of the Church's moral teachings. The same cannot be said, however, for many of the others calling for an end to priestly celibacy.
>>>>>>> IOW, men who violated the promise of celibacy are re-admitted, while men who did not violate celibacy, and sought relief through proper Church procedures, are not. This is rather strange, don't you think?<<<<<<
Yes, I think that is strange.
>>>>>>>The Latin Rite of the Catholic Church is struggling to maintain a practice that limits candidates to men who will declare that they will never marry<<<<<<<
There is no doubt that the condition of the priesthood and the seminaries in America is not optimal. I suspect we agree on that. The solution, though, is not to abandon a tradition that has worked well for centuries, but to address the root cause of the problem: liberalism.
Men will embrace celibacy for a cause larger than themselves, such as the fighting faith the Church embodied for centuries and still embodies in many places today. They will not embrace it for a tepid faith that is largely indistinguishable from that professed by the dying mainstream Protestant churches.
Your implication seems to be that American Catholic men are selfish, and that the "liberal" way is to settle for marriage rather than commit to celibacy and the priesthood. The permanent diaconate disproves that contention; there are plenty of men who would serve the Church if given the chance.
There are myriad reasons why men do not consider the priesthood. Among them is a general decline in the prestige of the religious vocation and its stature in society, putting off making lifetime decisions (Catholics are, in keeping with the general trends in society, marrying later as well), and a view that the priesthood is a haven for homosexuals (I've heard this objection a couple of times from young men in my parish). I'm continually told that the FSSP seminary is busting at the seams. However, the FSSP administers less than 1% of parishes in the United States and limits itself to the Tridentine sacramental rites, so the FSSP is not going to be much help in the rest of the Church.
Perhaps, initially, the Church limits the married men who might enter the priesthood to men over 40 or 50, men who may not have as many family obligations. Or, these men could serve "part time" (as some retired priests do today) and serve some of the outlying parishes in danger of closing.
At the very least, all of this should be discussed. Right now, the Church hierarchy seems to be afraid that, if the issue of mandatory celibacy is even broached, the rationale for it might fall apart.
Why isn't a serious discussion encouraged between clergy and young men to try to find out why they are not interested in the priesthood? I don't get the impression that most priests or bishops today much care about encouraging men to consider the priesthood, or why men have no interest in following them.
If IBM had trouble attracting candidates for employment, you can bet your life that the top priority of IBM executives would be to find out why nobody wanted to work for them, and how to resolve the problem.
But, the Catholic Church thinks corny stuff like sending clay chalices home with families whose kids are all grown and in other professions, who are then told to pray for more priests and deacons, will work.
It works for deacons: we have five men in our parish in line to join the next training class. But we have only one man in the seminary.
Why is the diaconate ordaining 750 men per year in the US, but only 400 priests are ordained?
The Church hierarchy has no answer to these questions, and they should.