Madam, – The strong turnout of women for Mass last Sunday in Clonakility, despite the widely promoted and widely publicised boycott, confirms something that I have suspected for a long time.
Despite what we are often told to believe, a substantial number of women do not feel discriminated against or “oppressed” by the absence of women’s ordination.
As a young Catholic woman I see plenty of opportunities to be involved in the mission of the church. Such opportunities are complementary to that of ordained ministers, certainly not supplementary.
Perhaps if others were less clerically minded they’d see these opportunities too. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Jennifer Sleeman’s “compelling reason” (Rite Reason, September 21st) for women’s ordination, the shortage of priests, is the least compelling reason of all. The ordination of women stands on its own merits or not at all. In fact, I would argue that the shortage of priests is a compelling reason not to support this move.
Very many commentators, both inside the church and outside it, have identified clericalism as the root cause of many of the church’s problems and until this has been addressed increasing the number of clerics will likely exacerbate the problem. The declining number of priests in the western church could be interpreted as a “sign of the times” and might indicate that a new model of church is ready to be born, one which fully integrates all members of the church as envisaged by Paul in his letter to the Galatians. There is little value in clinging to an out-moded expression of church but instead we need to have the confidence to allow it to be “born from above”. – Yours, etc,