What’s the difference between the Catholic Church and a used car salesman?

“Putting it bluntly, the Catholic Church does the opposite of a used car dealer,” remarks Dr. Michael Seewald, a professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Münster. While the used car dealer “wants to sell an old car by advertising it as much as possible as new, the Catholic Church constantly sells new cars, but passes them off for old cars.”

In the Latin rite of the Roman Church, compulsory clerical celibacy is the shiny Cadillac its salespeople advertise as the world’s first automobile.

But it isn’t.

Since Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta sparked the argy-bargy in a January interview with the Times of Malta, tub-thumpers on both sides have been trading the same tired arguments for and against clerical celibacy.