The trouble with women

The Vatican now considers women's ordination on par with child sexual abuse.

New rules the Vatican is expected to issue soon on penalties for priests who sexually abuse children will also put the ordaining of women in the same category of the most serious crimes under church law....

"Quite frankly, it is an outrage to pair the two, a complete injustice to connect the aspirations of some women among the baptized to ordained ministry with what are some of the worst crimes that can be committed against the least of Christ's members," U.S. Catholic editor Bryan Cones wrote at the monthly magazine's web site in a blast that appears to echo the views of many.

"This decision boggles the mind: The faithful have been justly demanding for nearly a decade clear guidelines for dealing with the sexual abuse of children, along with just punishments for both offenders and bishops who have abetted these crimes. What we have gotten is half of what we have been asking for (still no sanctions for bishops), along with a completely unconnected and unnecessary condemnation of the ordination of women."

Meanwhile, the Church of England seems stalled with women priests and unable to take thestep to women bishops.The Guardian:

The Church of England now expects both the benefits of establishment and the cultural freedom of private religion. At the very least, a national church should not become disconnected from the best values of the country it serves. But as the general synod, which begins tonight, will again confirm, the Church of England is strangely unwilling to do this. It devotes a shocking amount of energy to debating the supposed inferiority of women, gay men and lesbians. These issues matter intensely to some believers inside the church, but they make it look intolerant to the much larger number of people outside it.

Una Kroll

But maybe, just maybe, the established Church of England could now seize the opportunity to offer our nation a small example of how it is possible to live in a community that is based on mutual love and respect despite profound differences. That, I believe, is what God wants us to learn to do, and it is what Christian witness is all about. Come on, Church of England. Give us a moral lead for once.

The Observer:

Most of Britain has accepted that women can assume positions of authority and that homosexuality is a quite ordinary part of human experience. The explicit discrimination practised by the church is unacceptable in most non-religious settings and would be illegal if expressed by any other employer. There are, meanwhile, ample theological grounds for accepting that women are not created subordinate to men and that homosexuality is not hateful in the eyes of God. Dr Williams was determined not to go down in history as the Archbishop who split the church. He could have been remembered by future generations as a religious leader who stood unequivocally on the right side of a moral argument about sexual equality. Regrettably, that opportunity seems now to have passed.

Oh, come on get OVER it! Women have a lot to offer, not better or worse, just different, and that perspective is interesting, enriching, and important. These arguments are just like those that prevented talented women from advancing as scientists, doctors, or lawyers. Remember Sandra Day O'Connor was initially offered a job as a legal secretary, although she was admitted to the Bar. It's nothing to be proud of. With this sort of lunacy, the CofE is becoming an increasingly irrelevant historical artifact. The Vatican, of course, is bobbing behind, long lost in mediaeval times.

Update Let's remember that one Canon Kearon exposed the exasperation of the Archbishop of Canterbury with this remark:

Then Canon Kearon looked out at a room that was at least nearly half full of people of color, and the first thing he said was the "problem of increased and growing diversity in the Anglican Communion has been an issue for many years." He said that by the 1990s leaders in the communion has begun to name "the diversity of opinions in the communion and diversity in general as a problem and sought some mechanisms to address it."

If that doesn't define an early-20th century pale-stale-and-male viewpoint, I don't know what does.