With New Pope, Catholic Women Hope To Regain Church Leadership Roles

[rug]

by Sylvia Poggioli
April 01, 2013 5:04 PM

The newly elected pope's focus on the poor and the marginalized has instilled great faith among many Catholic women. They hope the papacy of Pope Francis will promote a leading role for women in the church.

A group of American nuns and Catholic women recently made a pilgrimage to Rome to make their requests heard.

They visited ancient sites that provide evidence of the important leadership role women played in the early centuries of Christianity.

Sister Carolyn Osiek, a scholar of women's role in early Christianity, guided the pilgrims through Ostia, the ancient port city of Rome. The excavations help illustrate how people lived in the early centuries of the first millennium, when worship was still relegated mostly to private homes.

http://www.npr.org/2013/04/01/175910981/with-new-pope-catholic-women-hope-to-regain-church-leadership-roles

[goldent]

1. I think women in the priesthood is a long ways off

but that shouldn't prevent some creative solutions to having women in leadership roles.

[rug]

2. And all they're looking for now is a restoration of those roles they've recently lost.

Even leaving ordination aside, up until 1917 one coud be a cardinal without having been ordained a deacon or priest. The role of a cardinal is primarily administrative and advisory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lay_cardinal