Sir, - Pope John Paul II has "definitively" turned his back on ordaining women even to the extent of allowing married ex-Anglican ministers to become priests, chiefly because they, too, are opposed to the ordination of women. Women, he insists, should have equal rights with men everywhere, except in the Church. Why? Because Jesus was a man; therefore, only men can represent Him at the altar.
The Pope proves too much. If women cannot represent Christ, how can they be Christians? How can they put on Christ in baptism? How can they be part of the Body of Christ or belong to the kingdom of priests? When Jesus said, "If one of you is hungry, I am hungry", was he referring only to hungry men? Moreover, how can Christ save women on the cross and in the Mass, if he cannot, as a male, represent them?
In the 21st century, due to a gynaephobia that has been plain throughout history, women still count for nothing in a men-only Vatican. Surely no Christian should seem to back an institution that promotes this form of apartheid. More and more women feel as alienated as black Africans did when signs on toilets, buses, entrances to buildings said, "Whites Only".
How can Catholic parents give financial support to a religious institution that in its cult shows explicit contempt for women? How encourage their children, especially girls, to take part in rites that implicitly demean half of the world? How foster in their sons a vocation to an outdated patriarchal ministry? Alfred Adler said that ranking one half of humanity over the other poisons all human relationships.
Today, few people can support an organisation - political party, business association, golf club, etc. - that excludes women on the basis of gender. This is why, some time ago, I decided in conscience I could no longer attend Mass celebrated exclusively by males. I am among an ever-growing number of practising, non-Catholics. We support the community, but not its male chauvinist regime.
I myself am on a Eucharistic hunger-strike until the Church succeeds in making Rome change its anti-women prejudice parading as theology. If this means dying without the last rites and Viaticum, I will simply join the millions who already die priestless because of the Pope's insistence on only male celibates being ordained. For me, it is a small price to pay to support Catholic women who are unjustly excluded from the seventh sacrament, namely, ordination to all the ministries in the Church: deacon, priest, bishop and pope. - Yours, etc.,
Peter De Rosa, Ashford, Co Wicklow.