FRiend... after reading your latest post, I'm thinking that either you didn't read my previous posts at all! To sum up:
1)
In NONE of these passages to do you ever see Paul say that in order to serve as a priest you must be single and celibate. Did you miss the part where I agreed with you on this point? (cf.
"As to your point:)
2)
To the contrary priests in the Bible were married men with wives and children. Did you also miss the part where I agreed with that (and strengthened it, including bishops), as well? (cf. the exact same paragraph; see above link)
3) "
Yes Paul was in his 50s and 60s when he wrote most of his letters-—the equivalent being in your 80s and 90s in today’s world considering that average life expectancy in that time was about 40. Now, I can only believe that you either missed or ignored my math-related post on this point, completely. See
here, re: average age not equaling typical age. Your assumption about St. Paul's age is--forgive me--just silly... and it had nothing to do with the point, anyway (unless you're suggesting that all 50-year-old men lose all interest in sex--and you're also suggesting that St. Paul was (even if we grant your false premise, for the sake of argument) so shallow as to mistake a "personal low libido" for "reason to recommend that no one else marry". Honestly: if St. Paul had (hypothetically) lost his taste for salted fish, do you think he would then have exhorted his followers to give up fish altogether, in general? That makes no sense at all.
4)
The pastor at our church recently said the average of a person entering into the seminary today is 35. And that average continues to increase with each passing year.
Let's assume that this is true, for a moment (and it's not at all true for the seminaries which are actually orthodox, as opposed to 1960's-hippie-professor-taught seminaries; Mt. St. Mary's Seminary in Maryland, for example, has a waiting list of young (below age 25) men waiting to enter). Your conclusion of, "Oh, it must be because people can't bear to be without sex!" would only affect young men who've completely lost sight of what it means to be a Latin Rite priest in the first place. If these men were married, and their wives then suffered some sort of disorder which rendered it impossible to have sex, would you then advocate polygamy for these "poor, deprived men"? Would you advocate "easy annulments" on the basis of sex deprivation? Would you advocate a loosening of the Church's "policy" on extramarital sex and/or masturbation and/or pornography, in an effort to give such men an outlet?
On that point: are you against the celibacy requirement for religious sisters and brothers, as well? Why keep them "in sexual chains", while releasing priests to marry? With all due respect, I don't think you (or your pastor) have thought this through; the celibacy requirement didn't come out of thin air... and you have no sane basis for saying that it was instituted foolishly, thoughtlessly, capriciously, or the like.
You may not intend it, FRiend, but your view of manhood (and womanhood, for that matter) is so low that it makes me shudder. Caving in on a Scripture-urged discipline, simply in the name of secular "expediency" (and an indulgence of an animal passion, at that), is not the way to go, to put it lightly.
I guess we’re talking over each other but you don’t seem to be addressing ANY of MY points as well:
1) The Bible does NOT require a policy of celibacy for service in the priesthood.
2) Priests in the Bible were in fact married men with families.
3) Mandatory clerical celibacy was not instituted in the Church until after the Middle Ages and for reasons that had nothing to do with either the Old Testament or the Gospels.
4) St. Paul chose to remain abstinent in his final years, says it is a gift, but also has high praise for Holy Matrimony, and does not say that married people cannot be priests.
5) The current Pope says the policy is subject to change which is in fact mentioned in the article above.
6) Catholic priests in the Eastern Europe and the Middle East are permitted to remain married. Same with Orthodox priests.
Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As the Pope said the policy is subject to change. I agree.