Crow Sister, that's one of the more thoughtful defenses of celibacy I've seen. Celibacy is often not much of a problem for men and women in religious orders, because they choose to make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience - those vows are an integral part of membership in a religious order (although the "obedience" idea has changed radically in many orders).

But most priests are "secular" priests, attached to a particular diocese instead of to a religious order. These priests earn a salary and manage their own expenses, and they live on their own and not in a religious community. They make a solemn promise of celibacy before they are ordained, but celibacy has never been an integral and logical part of diocesan priesthood. As a result, most diocesan priests I know, look on celibacy as a burden they had to accept because they wanted to become priests. But very few priests that I know, see celibacy as something necessary for priesthood (most of my priest friends would like to see women ordained priests, too). so, it's a tough row to hoe for many of them, and it's the reason why I and many others left the seminary.

While I don't think celibacy causes child molestation, it eliminates a lot of sexually normal people from the "gene pool" that provides candidates for priesthood. That makes the proportion of sexually abnormal people higher, and creates a situation that is more comfortable for sexual deviates.

-Joe-