Realizing that most of my readers are lay, and realizing how the priest—child scandals have tanked not only the low trust placed in celibates not only by secularists but even by good Catholics, this blog has to tread on pretty raw ground.  Let me stay at the outset that although Divine Revelation definitively holds it as true that celibacy is a higher vocation than marriage, the saints are clear that the priest's salvation is normally harder to attain than that of a lay person, due to the higher level of scrutiny at his particular judgment.  This is obviously due to the duties and high-calling he has ostensibly answered in life. [...]