A lot of people aren't so good at "simple" mathematics.
"A lot of people aren't so good at "simple" mathematics."
OK, let's take as an example the largest Eastern Catholic Church - the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
There are now over 3,500 parishes in the UGCC, each one with at least one priest. Their tradition is to have a married parish clergy, while the celibates are mainly monks. However, about 15% of their parish clergy are also celibate. This means that 85% of the priests are married men, therefore, the number of married priests in the UGCC is approximately:
3,500 x 85% = 2,975.
In other Eastern Catholic Churches, the proportion of married priests ranges from about 45% to 80%. There are roughly 10,000 priests in the Eastern Churches, and therefore, taking a conservative estimate of 45%, there will be a minimum of:
10,000 x 45% = 4,500
married priests in the East.
Obviously this is the Eastern tradition and so it is to be expected. In the West married priests only exist as an exception to the norm and these as a result of convert married clergy being ordained to the priesthood. These are mainly confined to the Anglophile provinces such as the US and UK and probably number no more than 800 worldwide (last figures released in UK were that 500 had taken advantage of the "Roman option").
Thus it is safe to say conservatively that there are 4,500 + 800 married priests in the Catholic Church, i.e. 5,300.
While it is a very small per centage of the approx. 400,000 Catholic priests, nevertheless I would hardly describe 5,300 as just a "few". A "few" would tend to imply a number that one could count on the fingers of two hands.
However, that is not to say that the discipline of the Latin rite should change. Ordaining celibate and homosexual men only will remain the norm in the West long after we have all gone to our reward.