Priests in the Catholic church have to make a vow of celibacy, a tradition that is currently under pressure because it is a serious hindrance to the recruitng of new priests. Indeed, such a vow implies a serious commitment that men are less willing to make compared to Malthusian times where population control was a matter of survival and being a priest was a good economic choice.
Men-Andri Benz, Reto Foellmi, Egon Franck and Urs Meister claim the Catholic Church should resist the calls for the end of celibacy. Their reasoning is again about commitment. It allows the Church to signal to its believers that its priests are more conservative, and this triggers more donations. While it reduces the pool of candidates for priesthood, the celibacy vow selects the right ones for the task of showing conservative values. All this, of course, assuming that conservative values will remain strong, at least among Church donors.
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