Hell hath no fury

The Catholic Church is getting a lot of attention these days due to practices we all used to joke and trade stories about in gradeschool but there's another controversy brewing that could be far more troublesome for the church; Bake Sale grannies aren't sharing the profits in protest. There's nothing that gets the attention of the Catholic Church faster than multi-million dollar lawsuits and parishners passing on the tithe...oh, and women wanting to be clergy.

As an American woman in her 30s, I have always felt equal to men in the workplace and at home. Only at church do I feel an injustice and powerlessness that I encounter in no other area of my life. Only at church am I marginalized. It's simple: Priests are men. Therefore, men run things in the church. When an associate pastor spoke vehemently one Sunday several years ago, in a sort of my church love it or leave it homily, about why women could never be priests in the Catholic Church, I could only sit and seethe.

Go ahead, I thought, tell my daughters one more time why they're not good enough. He's mistaken, I told them later. Sexism is a sin, just like racism. I think by the time you're grown-ups, women will be priests. That's what I'm praying for.

Funny, my mother said the same thing to me and my sisters 30 years ago. Bake cookies for the needy and the starving and save your prayers sister as the Church ain't changing anytime soon.

18 Apr 2002 at 16:20, Helsinki