Times change my friend. Sorry you think my opinion is BS. My father entered the seminary at Boston College in the the 60’s. He was discouraged by the overwhelming amount of homosexuals he encountered and thank god for me made his choice to leave.
I’m not bashing the church, I just don’t see the harm in ordaining women and more married men. Explain to me how it “harms” the church. Don’t just say it’s tradition and can’t be changed. Slavery was tradition for a long time. Women not being able to vote was a tradition for a long time. Polygamy, etc etc etc.
Question: If the church allowed more married men and women to be ordained, would this encourage more people to join the Catholic church or cause people to leave?
IMHO I think it’s the former.
Noooooooo, not at all.
Back in the 1960s, many seminaries attracted candidates by suggesting that the celibacy discipline would soon be dropped. It was a time of social change and, sadly, Catholics expected that Vatican Council II would bring about many changes, including approval for artificial birth control. I know several men who left the seminary to marry. The Latin Church, as another freeper noted, maintains this discipline. The Eastern Catholic Churches have always allowed for married men to become priests.
That said, there are a multitude of reasons why the Latin Church will not change this discipline anytime soon, primary of which is the societal trend in marriage. More people today choose to live together prior to marriage - a mortal sin. More than 50% of all marriages in the west, end in divorce (this is not the case in the east but the trend is emerging). Here are some of the other reasons.
5 Arguments Against Priestly Celibacy and How to Refute Them