Women no longer content to be silent on lack of church role

While there have been important cultural advances for women in terms of their role in society, the one institution that does not appear to have altered its attitude towards women to any great degree is the Roman Catholic Church.

This is despite Pope Francis’s 2013 remarks that women are “essential for the church”.

It seems that it is also “essential” that women remain silent, and the long-held tradition that women should remain silent in church, attributed to St Paul (1 Corinthians 14.34), and now believed by scholars to be a later addition to his letter, continues to dominate the Vatican mindset.

To dismiss this edict as no longer applicable is to underestimate the deep-seated antipathy to hearing the voices of women in the institutional church.

Read more at The Irish Times.