Should the Pope start allowing Priests and nuns to marry?
Just for the record, Eastern Catholic priests are allowed to marry. No, I don’t think it should become the norm (personal preference here) but it could change. Many reasons for that: 1. The working hours are hectic to say the least. 2. The Church frequently moves its members around, in order to expose them to different cultures and problems. Priests get moved from country to country on a regular basis (at the very least from town to town). The implications for a priest with a family would be huge. 3. Works better for difficult environments (80%of today’s Catholics live in South America and Africa especially amid poor or violent communities). A priest would be reluctant to bring children to such places. Also, speaking of a national context, in our communist years roman catholic priests had an advantage over their orthodox (the majority denomination here, its priests can marry) and eastern catholic counterparts in the sense that they were less exposed to blackmail or threats to their fam
A “nun” who marries is not longer a nun, that is a contradiction. Many priests are married, within the Orthodox Church, former Lutheran pastors and Episcopal priests who are now RC priests, and of course at one point priests were married or celibate ddepending on the time, if they were nmonks etc. just as Orthodox bishops come from monastic life and are celibate or at least single! Sexual activity or its absence has absolutely nothing to do with whether a man or woman is a better person in and of itself. Character, virtue, one’s response to Grace are the determining factors. If a celibate truly loves God and people, that life can be more fruitful for humankind than a self-centered married pastor, and vice versa. Sexual activity does not solve one’s sexual needs automatically!
