Women Who Want Women Priests are Leaving Catholicism



Movement toward women priests has slowed because women, and men who support women's rights, are leaving the denomination. One cannot blame them, but it does not help to move the needle.

There are not good statistics on this but lots of antidotal testimony. It's very understanding that these women leave. The surprise is that any of them stay.

If, as I suspect, Pope Leo wants women first as deacons and later as clergy these leaving women complicate his task. The Pope is a political position and he needs to be able to tell conservatives there is a big group of women in the denomination that demand equal treatment. He wants to be seen as the peacemaker. If those women have left, the peace maker excuse is all but absent. Conservatives, and most male clergy do not care if progressive women leave.  

This, of course, is not limited to the Catholic denomination. Southern Baptists and Missouri Synod Lutherans do not allow women clergy. 

On conservative Christian sites, there is a lot of chest-beating about an increase in the numbers of single men showing up at worship services. Little is said about the large number of women who are leaving. The Christian faith has been a "good old boy's club" during the past several decades and it looks like that is not going to change for a long time. 

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