Madam, - Like the rumbling of distant thunder, a desultory correspondence regarding priestesses continues; this matter was settled some 2,000 years ago when Christ, despite the fact that his most loyal followers were women, appointed an all-male priesthood.
Some advocates of women clergy protest that Christ was a "man of his times". They fail to appreciate that this is the argument for an all-male priesthood in that Christ was born "in the fullness of time" - that is at precisely the time and in exactly the place that God had ordained for his purposes. Furthermore, He was born into a society that God had moulded for this purpose over hundreds of years, a society that, unusually in the historical context, had an all-male priesthood.
It is arrogance bordering on blasphemy to suggest that God made a mistake in not adopting 21st-century concepts of equal rights into his plan of salvation. - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL SALTER, Carrigoona, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow.