Eastern Rite churches in communion with the Roman Catholic Church already permit married priests.
As a Protestant, I don’t have a dog in this fight, and I have no issue with married clergy. However, this particular pope has a less than stellar record of enforcing Church doctrine as it is.
I suspect this comes more out of his sense of “social justice” rather than a sober judgement of how to attract and retain faithful priests to spread the Gospel. I could respect and disagree with both John Paul II and Benedict XVI. They were both deeply committed to serving our Lord and their church.
Ironically, I can agree more with Francis while respect him much less. I doubt his commitment, which is frankly just sad.
“this particular pope has a less than stellar record of enforcing Church doctrine as it is.”
I did not want to focus the discussion on Pope Francis. I have been very disappointed in him.
I wanted to see what people thought of priests marrying. In the early church most priests were married. I have read that while there were calls for celibacy most priests were actually married in the middle ages.
One of Martin Luther’s objections to the church was that celibacy was contrary to nature. It is said that this was one of the reasons for the popularity of the Reformation.
http://www.lutheranlayman.com/2015/07/martin-luther-celibacy-is-contrary-to.html