--- Gabriel de Figueiredo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I do appreciate the stand of the Catholic Church. It has nothing to do with > considering women > as "inferior" or "not smart enough to priests". It has all to do with the > mental, physiological > makeup, or, to put it in other words, with the conceptual differences in ways > men and women > think and do (hence the courts' tendencies to give custodial rights of the > children to > the mother).
Gabriel, I don't know if you realize it but comments like "mental, physiological makeup" are precisely the sexist comments that people who believe women are equal to men complain about. We are talking about roles in the church, not the physiological ability to have babies in which case there is a difference between men and women. I must confess that I am disappointed Cardinal Dias did not get elected, dismayed that the College of Cardinals cannot see beyond Europe to find a Pope, in disbelief that there are people on this forum arguing that it is ok to discriminate against women and deny them priesthood. Interestingly, it would have looked nicer on television to see "Princesses" of the Church, in addition to "Princes", electing the Pope. There are a number of women CEOs, women Prime Ministers, women Supreme Court Justices, etc. Women do not lack intellectually, academically, etc. so I am not sure what the justification is to deny them priesthood. What specific attribute that priesthood requires which women do not have? What specific "conceptual difference" which matters to priesthood? It seems to me that it all boils down to sexism, self-doubt among some women and hence their opposition to priesthood, even self-hate of their gender. I do not want to say any more on this topic, except point readers to a website which discusses some of these issues. See http://www.womenpriests.org/index.asp Regards, George
