the Latin Church has evolved for the past 1,500 years with a primarily celibate priesthood
it seems inorganic to just change all of that
Okay, but no more complaining about the vocations shortage then.
I mean, in the feudal times when the first son inherited everything, the later sons would often find the best path open to them in life was becoming a priest or a solider, and there were lots of very big families. And, by the way, a lot of those priests had mistresses- or, ahem, close bachelor friends. But we don't live in those times anymore. There aren't as many surplus males who can't inherit, there is no real disadvantage to not being the first born in a generalized sense, the priesthood is considered a less prestigious position, and those who want, um, close bachelor friends can do so without having to pretend to be celibate to be accepted (Usually, anyway).
The situation on the ground is just different. And this is exactly the kind of area where the Church can and should adapt, because the priest shortage is leaving lay people under-served. Even the most conservative folks admit that celibate versus married clergy is just a matter of discipline. What could be done, if they don't want to go "whole hog" on this, is to have a special order of celibate priests who get sort of an inside track to being pastors of parishes and bishops of dioceses, with a different order of ordinary sort of "parish priests" who are fully ordained priests, but because they can marry are mostly limited to just being associate pastors, occasionally pastors where necessary, and very occasionally bishops in the event of a really outstanding shepherd.
And if you don't think this situation is at all related to the vocations shortage, you should look at the statistics and listen to the stories about just how many priests left the priesthood and asked to be laicized so they could marry in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. That doesn't count the people who decided not to become priests in the first place for this reason, which is probably substantial but unquantifiable.
and as I understand it, priests could NEVER marry, rather married men could become priests
My understanding is that in the east where priests can officially marry, that they must be married prior to ordination and can not marry afterwards or in the event of their wife's death. This leads to a mad scramble among single seminarians to find a wife under the wire before ordination. I know a female former theology student who took classes with some Eastern Rite seminarians in union with Rome (Who followed the eastern traditions) overseas- they were all over her. Not in a licentious way, mind you. But they were very much looking to get into a serious relationship that would lead to marriage very fast, for obvious reasons.
you mention priestly celibacy was introduced in 1,100
if something like that was imposed over night, there would have been riots in the street
while there were married priests before 1,100, it was not as wide spread as you might think
He's not correct when he says priestly celibacy was introduced in 1,100 in the west, but I think I know what he's talking about, which is that it had come into practice that many priests would take what we might today essentially call common law wives. Things didn't end well for those women and their children after a Papal crackdown on the practice. I can't remember the details, but you can imagine what might happen to a woman in times when women couldn't hold jobs outside the home and virginity was highly valued (and the reverse distained among people looked for wives), if they suddenly were just kicked to the streets with suddenly "illegitimate" children at a time when children born out of wedlock were heavily discriminated against as well.
In western church's first 1200 years or so, there is strong evidence that clerical celibacy was usually upheld on paper, but that in practice the prohibition was frequently ignored. That's why they kept having to crack down on it. One such crackdown was in 530 when the Emperor Justinian declared all marriages entered into by those in holy orders null and void.
Anyway, I just think from a practical perspective, we know celibacy versus marriage for priests is recognized as a matter of discipline (i.e. something that can be changed- not a matter of faith or morals) by all factions in the Church. We have a priest shortage. We know a ton of priests left the priesthood to marry after Vatican II, and we can probably infer that a lot of people are not entering seminaries (or not exiting them as ordained clergy) for the same reason. The Pope could wave his hand and allow married priests tomorrow, and people would have more access to the Eucharist, confessions, and so on and so forth. We also would be able to have smaller parishes where people could speak with their priests regularly and get to know them. And these poor priests would stop having to say 6 Sunday masses and stuff (I understand that canonically under ordinary circumstances, the limit is two, but I've heard of priests being assigned to parishes with 4-6 masses by themselves, and who do you think is celebrating those masses each weekend
And, as I said, to whatever extent priestly celibacy has merit as a tradition, that would not have to be abandoned. There could still be celibate priests. You create a special track for them with special perks and so on and so forth. Some people will always feel the call to do that.
