Many priests of other Christian religions are married including Episcopal, Lutheran, Baptist, and Protestant priests are all allowed to marry, and these has not seemed to negatively affect their relationship with God or church community. In a 2012 study by the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community researchers found that many priests admitted to sexual relations and over 30% admitted to masturbation. This shows that priests have the need for this physical factor. Also the apostles were married. Even the rock of the Church, Peter, was married and this did not seem to stop him from spreading the word of Jesus all over the world. Recently data has also shown that the amount of priests has drastically decreased and the average age of priests has increased. What this means is that less men are entering the priesthood, and this is causing the average age to go up. If this trend continues there will be a sharp decline in the number of priests when the older priests die.
I believe priest should be allowed to marry because it would allow them to better teach their church community. It would give them better perspective in some of their sermons. Also, many married couples go to priests for counseling, and priests would better be able to counsel these couples if they had their own personal experience. Priests are called Father by much of the community, and while the people of their church are similar to a family it is not the same as a literal and tangible family. Recently, there has been a shortage of men who want to enter into priesthood. A reason for this is the rule of celibacy the church has. It deters many men who are deciding whether or not to become a priest. This is because they fear a life of solitude, and believe they will lack that deep emotional connection with another person. There has also been an increase in cases where priests are found to be molesting young boy and girls in their church community. I believe that if priests were married the amount of these cases would drop drastically because priests would be solving their emotional and physical needs with their wife instead. Marriage and Holy Orders are both Sacraments. I do not believe that sacraments should be restricted. Sacraments are thought to bring a person closer to God. So if a priest could reach towards another, couldn’t they become even closer to God.
