The Vatican today made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes under church law, putting it in the same category as clerical sex abuse of minors, heresy and schism.

The new rules, which have been sent to bishops around the world, apply equally to Catholic women who agree to a ceremony of ordination and to the bishop who conducts it. Both would be excommunicated. Since the Vatican does not accept that women can become priests, it does not recognise the outcome of any such ceremony.

In a previous statement, the hierarchy warned pedophile priests that they could expect to spend eternity in hell. So, is the Church really saying that women who seek ordination will be consigned to the torments of hell? Really?

Okay. Apparently, if you ordain a woman, give her the power of transubstantiation, allow her to participate fully in the spiritual life of Catholicism, this now ranks with the molestation of children?

You know, we spend an awful lot of time criticizing Muslims for the way they treat their women. But sometimes, I find myself wondering if "fundamentalist" readings of any religion--Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, or Islam, simply cannot accept that women are full human beings, endowed by their Creator with the rights to a full life.

I'm not a Catholic. I'm not a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Hindu.

But I'm a woman.

I'm a human being.

My two daughters are full human beings.

How dare these old men claim that the ordination of women is the equivalent of raping a child? 

Some American Catholics have spoken, out, with this statement by David Gibson, author of a biography on Pope Benedict who quotes

U.S. Catholic editor Bryan Cones as saying, "Quite frankly, it is an outrage to pair the two, a complete injustice to connect the aspirations of some women among the baptized to ordained ministry with what are some of the worst crimes that can be committed against the least of Christ's members."

I don't know what to say to the Catholic members of Open Salon. I do not wish to slam your religion, but I find myself wondering how one can make peace with a religion that equates the accident of being born with a vagina and then trying to become a priest the same level of crime as deliberately hurting a child?

Was not Christ born of a woman?

Were not the first witnesses to his resurrection, women?

Then what, please pray tell, is the problem with women?

Are we still the monsters of the 15th century imagination as written in the Malleus Maleficarum?

All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable. See Proverbs xxx: There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, a fourth thing which says not, It is enough; that is, the mouth of the womb. Wherefore for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort even with devils. More such reasons could be brought forward, but to the understanding it is sufficiently clear that it is no matter for wonder that there are more women than men found infected with the heresy of witchcraft. And in consequence of this, it is better called the heresy of witches than of wizards, since the name is taken from the more powerful party. And blessed be the Highest Who has so far preserved the male sex from so great a crime: for since He was willing to be born and to suffer for us, therefore He has granted to men the privilege.



Or perhaps we're still operating under the assumptions of St. John Chrysostom?

"It does not profit a man to marry. For what is a woman but an enemy of friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a domestic danger, delectable mischief, a fault in nature, painted with beautiful colors?"

St. John Chrysostom

Please. Explain to me why you would allow yourself, your daughters, your wife, your sister, your mother--their desire to be priests to be such a threat to a religion that their crime is the equivalent of child molestation?