A petition signed by 22,000 people urging the Catholic Church to remove its ban on women priests has been sent to all 35 Irish bishops in active ministry.
Eight of the bishops have sent letters of acknowledgement to the organisation which gathered the signatures, Brothers and Sisters in Christ (BASIC).
Ms Soline Vatinel, a spokeswoman for the group, said the response from the bishops was "a small miracle" given the resistance of church leaders in the past to acknowledging the issue.
She said the Papal Nuncio, Dr Luciano Storero, had refused to meet BASIC to accept the petition. The Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady, did not reply to correspondence asking for a meeting.
The distribution of the petition was timed for Vocation Sunday last month. However, it was overshadowed by the ordination of singer Sinead O'Connor by the dissident bishop Michael Cox.
Ms Vatinel said BASIC would not recommend women who had a vocation to take the same route as Ms O'Connor "because it creates parallel structures and effectively a parallel church. We are working instead to change the rules and regulations of the Roman Catholic Church from within".
The petition is being targeted at bishops in the run-up to the Synod of European Bishops in Rome this autumn.
