If priests were allowed to marry, if this would be an optional thing, and if he could have wife and children, he would certainly have less temptation to satisfy certain sexual impulses with minors.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In the Western Church to which I belong, priests cannot be married as in the Byzantine, Ukrainian, Russian or Greek Catholic Churches. In those churches, the priests can be married, but the bishops have to be celibate. They are very good priests.
Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord.
The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the Church. a duty and a proof of the priest's inner maturity; it is the expression of his personal dignity.
The church may hold whatever it holds with regard to clerical celibacy.
If, hypothetically, Western Catholicism were to review the issue of celibacy, I think it would do so for cultural reasons, not so much as a universal option.
A priest encounters temptation every day, and some of that desire is very natural.
Every kid that goes to Catholic school believes he's going to be a priest one day.
Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
The truly longstanding tradition in the church is that some are called to celibacy. Some feel called to it. But the church has never supported that celibacy be mandated for someone not called to it. It's never imposed on someone.