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
I’m glad my dad chose the way he did or I wouldn’t exist. Like I said before this isn’t an issue that would cause me to leave the church either way. Just my opinion. The birth control issue is also tough. We have 2 children, my wife was pregnant with our second the whole time I was in Iraq. It was very tough on her at home being pregnant and already taking care of our 1-year-old while I was gone for 15 months. I’ll be deploying again in less than a year and my wife says she can’t handle another pregnancy while I’m gone. I guess alot of true blue Catholics think God wouldn’t understand that and we still shouldn’t use birth control. I’ll take my chances with God when I meet him on that one.
Although the discipline of priestly celibacy is not required by Christian doctrine (unlike the requirement that priests be men), the experience of Protestant ministers suggests that, in modern Western society, there’s a fundamental incompatibility between the ministerial vocation and the married vocation.
And it’s typical that a person pushing married priesthood (in the Latin-rite Church) rejects fundamental aspects of doctrine such as the ordination of men and “Humanae Vitae.” One might as well be Episcopal if everything in the faith and morals is up for individual reinterpretation.