naomi - // AH, a lot of people don’t have loving relationships or have children. That doesn’t make them devoid of empathy. //
That's true, but empathy is no substitute for direct experience, in any situation.
I used to empathise with my wife and daughters' period pains, but that doesn't mean I understand what it's like from direct experience.
And yes, a lot of people don;t have loving relationships or children, but only priests and nuns have it as an unbreakable rule of their professional lives, and that is where the problem lies.
The irony is, they are supposed to be loving and supportive of marriage and children, and every single one of them, literally every single one, has no idea what those experiences are like, and never have, and never can, and never will.
The ludicrous irony is, you can;t be a priest and marry and have children, but you can be married and have children and be a priest.
The Catholic church is realistic enough to understand that part of the solution to their ever-dwindling supply of young people to go into a life of celibacy, is to recruit converts from the Anglican church, who can live with their wives and families, and still act in every other way as priests.
I find that absence of logic too bizarre to understand, but then so is a belief in God.