There are quite a few married Catholic priests - even in our diocese we have some. (They used to be Anglican vicars and moved over). And of course in the Uniate churches - which are full members of the church, and will have representatives in the Conclave - married priests are routine, as they always have been.

That kind of thing is purely a matter of regulations that could be changed at any time. I can't imagine it'll be long before that change comes in. After all, St Peter had a mother-in-law.

And I heard someone the other day say it's estimated that 50 per cent of Catholic priests in the USA are gay. Whatever that actually means in a celibate lifestyle.

True enough, there's a lot of hypocracy around and a lot of fudging. But it's not as rigid as a lot of people make it out to be, either because they think it's too rigid, or because they wish that it was more rigid.