OT, according to Roman Catholic canon law, if a married RC gets divorced and legally remarried (but without a Church sanctioned annulment,which are always very hard to get unless you’re (Rudy G., a Kennedy or someone else very famous and) and very wealthy), priests cannot given them the sacraments. That’s a spiritual death sentence.

Now, if a Roman Catholic priest has repeated sex with minor partners (almost always male), they get anything they want. They get to not only continue to receive the sacraments, they get to continue to preside over them. They get never-ending absolution, treatment for alcoholism or whatever else they want, a new parish, a new assignment, anything, because the RC Church has a huge labor shortage. When you only ordain one gender and then make them promise permanent celibacy, it shrinks the pool of applicants.

Catholics from outside the Roman tradition, Orthodox and others have stayed with the tradition of optional celibacy that dates back to Jesus of Nazareth. Pole Hildebrand jettisoned the “optional” part around the 12th century.

Much of the rest of Christianity has embraced the idea that God’s grace can work through either gender as an ordained minister.

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