I do believe, from my own professional experience, it is imperative that the Church begin a rigorous examination of proposed clergy who have decided on their life’s work before the age of puberty. It always seemed to me that the sexuality of those declaring before puberty ended up being very immature and peculiar from a common sense view. Many times the sexual acts and inclinations were analogous to adolescent sexual experimentation. This tendency to suppress sexuality on a spiritual basis may make sense as a voluntary, adult decision maker; however, even Protestant married clergy who have made their life choice before puberty often have similar problems.
We agree. I think many of our past cultural attitudes about sexuality were simplistic; that said, I continue to believe all children are best off with a committed, married mother and father, preferably Christians or religious Jews, and whatever it takes socially to make that happen.
I have no prejudice against the idea of celibate priests per se, but believe the preparation stages should include a testing phase. I saw part of a reality series on the TBN Catholic cable channel awhile back in which young men in their twenties were meeting with their high school girlfriends in an effort to work out the depth of their vocation.
The social problem of "what did God intend" for people who do not naturally seem marriageable is formidable.
It used to be that boys left home after the 9th grade to attend a Seminary high school, then did college work with the same young men on their way to becoming priests. The Church realized that this was not a good way to attract mature young men, so that's why that has changed.
During the heyday of Feminism, many Seminaries were infiltrated, for lack of a better term, by Feminist teachers, and homosexuals were accepted readily into the ranks of the priesthood. This also led to many young men who would have been strong orthodox priests either not being accepted into the Seminary, or if they happened to get accepted, were drummed out by the overarching homosexual culture of a few Seminaries in the US. The older Bishops weren't paying attention, or it didn't seem to matter to them. When a younger group of Bishops came up, appointed by John Paul II, they started changing that situation. It will take several more years for the situation to be resolved, but it's happening. Mostly what it took was for the Bishops to tell the Seminary where he normally would have sent his Diocesan candidates, that he wasn't going to send any more until they cleaned up their act!