I doubt if I would make this claim given all the pedophile priests the Church is dealing with today.
None of your claims in your article ring true to my argument. I'm certainly in agreement with Paul who felt it was better to be celebrant simply because as an individual you are freer to pick up and go. You don't have to worry all the worldly trappings like getting the kids through college, how you're going to support a household, or how to pay for the orthodontist. Those aren't my point. Instead I would suggest that it is legalistic to tell another person what they should or should not do; much like the Galatians telling people to be circumcised. If priests want to get married then fine as long as they understand the problems it will cause.
In fact, the Catholic Church forbids no one to marry. No one is required to take a vow of celibacy; those who do, do so voluntarily. They “renounce marriage” (Matt. 19:12); no one forbids it to them.
Let's be honest, there are a number of priests who would like to get married and the Church refuses to let them. If they were to do so they would be booted out of the priesthood Eastern cardinal sees problems with married priests. It's hard to make a case that priests really and truly want to "renounce" marriage when you have groups of them picketing the Vatican saying they wish to get married, others leaving, and still others accosting altar boys.
It very clearly says that the practice of celibacy is a discipline and not a doctrine. Same as eating fish rather than meat on Fridays during Lent. For a Protestant, a discipline might be attending services at a set time on Sunday or Wednesday evenings, and removing one’s hat upon entering.
Celibacy bears no causal relation to any type of deviant sexual addiction including pedophilia. In fact, married men are just as likely as celibate priests to sexually abuse children (Jenkins, Priests and Pedophilia). In the general population, the majority of abusers are regressed heterosexual men who sexually abuse girls. Women are also found to be among those sexual abusers. While it’s difficult to obtain accurate statistics on childhood sexual abuse, the characteristic patterns of repeat child sex offenders have been well described. The profiles of child molesters never include normal adults who become erotically attracted to children as a result of abstinence (Fred Berlin, “Compulsive Sexual Behaviors” in Addiction and Compulsive Behaviors [Boston: NCBC, 1998]; Patrick J. Carnes, “Sexual Compulsion: Challenge for Church Leaders” in Addiction and Compulsion; Dale O’Leary, “Homosexuality and Abuse”).
Some people — including a few vocal dissenting Catholics — are exploiting this crisis to draw attention to their own agendas. Some are demanding a married Catholic clergy in response to the scandal, as if marriage would make men stop hurting children. This flies in the face of the aforementioned statistic that married men are just as likely to abuse children as celibate priests (Jenkins, Pedophilia and Priests).
Since neither being Catholic nor being celibate predisposes a person to develop pedophilia, a married clergy wouldn’t solve the problem (”Doctors call for pedophilia research,” The Hartford Currant, March 23). One has only to look at similar crises in other denominations and professions to see this.
The plain fact is, healthy heterosexual men have never been known to develop erotic attractions to children as a result of abstinence.
In the Western Catholic Church, celibacy became universally practiced in the 4th century, beginning with St. Augustine’s adoption of the monastic discipline for all of his priests. In addition to the many practical reasons for this discipline — it was supposed to discourage nepotism — the celibate lifestyle allowed priests to be more independent and available. This ideal also called diocesan priests to live out the same witness as their brothers in monastic life. The Church hasn’t changed her directives for celibacy, because over the centuries she has realized the practical and spiritual value of the practice (Pope Paul VI, On the Celibacy of the Priesthood;, Encyclical letter, 1967). Indeed, even in the Eastern Catholic Church — which includes a married clergy — the bishops are chosen only from unmarried priests.
Christ revealed the true value and meaning of celibacy. Catholic priests from St. Paul to the present have imitated Him in their total gift of self to God and others as celibates. Although Christ raised marriage to the level of a sacrament that reveals the love and life of the Trinity, He was also a living witness to the life of the world to come. The celibate priesthood is for us a living witness to this life in which the unity and joy of marriage between a man and a woman is surpassed in the perfect, loving communion with God. Celibacy properly understood and lived frees a person to love and serve others as Christ did.
We have some married priests in the West, just not many of them. For the last 1700 years, we have observed that unmarried priests tend to have more time to devote to God than do married ones. It’d be a tough marriage, given what is required of our priests today.
We have renegade Catholics today, as we have had over the centuries. Don’t forget the first millennium heretics, as well as Calvin and Luther. They exist today as well. They are only after their own ends, practicing their own hubris, pride and self-importance. They put themselves before God. They have free will and are practicing it.