The priesthood must sanctify the family, and the family must nourish the priesthood. The two are linked for better or for worse. The family is raised up in the measure that the priesthood is worthy, and the priesthood declines when the supply of recruits from the family diminishes.
If priestly activity is removed, the family falls apart through adultery, divorce and abortion. If you remove family chastity, you will not have suitable candidates for seminaries or religious foundations. They either support one another or they fall together. A human and divine solidarity binds them.
If we lay people can once again see priesthood and religious life in this way, we will open the shutters of our homes to the inner breath of the Church, the Spirit of God. When we remove the barriers we have erected to the moral and spiritual life, we will revive with the strength of the Church, not just marginally but with wholeness.
Igino Giordani
Laicato e sacerdozio
Città Nuova, Roma 1964, p. 149