The NYT zooms in on Ukraine, where the Vatican permits Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests to marry. Money quote from Father Yuriy Volovetskiy:
“Having a family gives a priest a deeper understanding of how to relate to other people and help other people. It is more natural, it makes more sense, for a priest to have a wife and children.”
Dreher figures that ending celibacy in the West will only help the Church:
I don't think there's any serious ground for believing that the Catholic sex abuse crisis was caused by celibacy (after all, married men can be child sex abusers too). But the older discipline of allowing married priests is a healthy one, it seems to me. I have learned so much about married life and family life from having been a husband and a father that I find it hard to imagine a priest who hasn't lived through these experiences being able to fully relate to them in counseling. [...] It would bring a lot more young men into the priesthood, I'm betting.
Reacting to news of a prominent priest in Portland resigning this week because of celibacy, Charles Mudede notes a 60% drop in Americans joining the priesthood since the '60s.