Regarding Cornel's post......... A few years ago I attended a wedding in the USA, and I too was very impressed by the sermon given by the priest, who was not so young. Something he said in his sermon made me inquire. Turned out that he indeed had been married and had 7 children. Then his wife died and he received special dispensation as a widower, to join the seminary and get ordained. The experience of having lived a married life clearly showed in his homilies. They were down to earth and reflective of a person having lived a "full" life.
A couple of years ago, my son got married in the USA to a girl of the Lutheran faith, in a Lutheran church. I was so taken up by the down to earth homily by the married Lutheran pastor, that I am convinced that priests in the Catholic church should also be allowed to get married if they so choose. Forcing priests to live a celibate life, which I suspect many privately do not comply with, is inhuman. The natural human sexual urges cannot be suppresed forever. The results are quite obvious with all the news stories one hears these days about the sexual shenanigans of the clergy. When will the Catholic church ever wake up ? And why not women priests ? Are women sub-human and less capable than men ? I am sure that in the early days of the Catholic church there were prominent women leaders. Those who oppose ordination of women use spurious arguments that do not hold water. Vivian
