Celibacy in the Catholic Church - from p.57-59 of "A Portrait of Jesus" by Joseph Girzone

Celibacy is a requirement for ordination to the priesthood. Many men know in their hearts they have a call to the priesthood, and even though they sense that celibacy may not be possible, they suppress their need for love and replace their fear of the potential risks with hope and prayer because their call to the priesthood is so overpowering. They observe celibacy during the many years of study and for a number of years afterward.

Then one day it strikes them. I cannot live this way. As the reason to suppress their need for love no longer provides the strong support it did, since they have reached their goal, they finally realize they do not have a genuine call to celibacy, and that realization is devastating.

From that point on it becomes almost an impossibility to observe it. They try and struggle and pray, but nothing seems to help. The frustration and loneliness is a constant distraction from their priestly work and leads to the most frightful and dangerous depression. At that point, some resort to drinking. Others resort to various other escapes. Some whom I have counseled have seriously considered suicide.

In their depression and frustration, they often treat people cruelly and do untold damage to souls. It is sad. Is that what Jesus would want? "let him who can take it, take it", Jesus said with understanding. It has to be a considered judgment made by a mature person, not forced on someone too young to understand the consequences later on, when their personality matures and they realize with their best of efforts they cannot live that way without it destroying them.

When one considers there are over a hundred thousand priests worldwide who have left the priesthood and married, it is obvious to any sensible person that something is wrong. They were not bad priests. Some of them were the best of priests. They must have felt a strong call to the priesthood. Eight to twelve years of intensive study is a good test of that.

A caring, sensitive hierarchy, if they are good shepherds who love the sheep, and their fellow shepherds as well, and really value the priesthood, would be the first to realize that something is wrong. Most of the priests who have left were excellent priests, caring, learned, sensitive to people's pain and need, and prayerful as well.

Clearly the priesthood and celibacy are two separate vocations. Demanding one as a requisite for the other does not mean that the Holy Spirit is going to cooperate and give the grace for both. The damage that attitude has caused is obvious to anyone with an open mind. In a situation as tragic as this is for all of Christianity, the words of Jesus stand out clearer than ever: "The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath. The law was made for man and not man for the law".

Where there is a human need, the law must bend. You don't insist on a law when it destroys people's lives and occasions unbelievable scandal to so many good people, and tears the Church apart, and attracts so many sick people into the priesthood.

Jesus' advice on celibacy is short and to the point: "Let him who can take it, take it". He himself made it optional. Insistence on the observance of a law when it occasions so much human tragedy and scandal  points out the wisdom of Jesus' philosophy.