Why Priestly Celibacy?

[Denise]

Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel, and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes.

[KarlB]

We are not easily led to believe that the abolition of ecclesiastical celibacy would considerably increase the number of priestly vocations… The causes of the decrease in vocations to the priesthood are to be found elsewhere—for example, in the fact that individuals and families have lost their sense of God and of all that is holy, their esteem for the Church as the institution of salvation through faith and the sacraments.

Right on. Celibacy goes back to the earliest origins of the Church in the first Apostles, the first monastics in the Fathers of the Desert and, the first pastors and was responsible for the rapid rise and integrity of the early Church.

It seems now to be under attack from 'modernist' elements in the Church who are using the Amazon Synod to push for sacramental ordination of indigenous 'elders' or 'traditional healers' to compensate for a lack of priests, bypassing the issues of real conversion and seminaries. It is also infused with a naive romanticism of the 'noble savage' and its attendant pagan and 'earth' spiritualism of shamanism.

It is fraught with problems and contradictions and it is the thin edge of wedge; using the want of priests as the excuse to end compulsory celibacy in the Latin Rite.