Church attendance will continue to drop until it allows equality
■ It was with some concern that I read Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s reply to Josepha Madigan’s input on whether women in the Church should be ordained.
When it comes to women priests we now know, from an admission by a cardinal in Rome, that there were women deacons in the Catholic Church. It was during the middle ages that women deacons were gradually eliminated from the Church.
So what changed within St Peter’s that women were excluded from ordination?
Without women’s participation in the Church, where would it be today?
These unpaid volunteers who prop up a Church that looks down on them and treats them as second class, are they not worthy of priestly functions?
There are some laity who accept the Church’s teachings in all its forms and won’t hear of any criticism whatsoever levelled at what they see as their Church.
The Catholic Church and its blind adherence to laws and structures drawn up by men and not by God will see its attendance dwindle if it doesn’t accept all sections of society and allow for equality in its ministries from the different genders.
We are living in an ever-changing society with ever-changing values and attitudes.
How can the present Pope come to this or any other country under the banner of ‘World Meeting of Families’ when the Church, which he is head of, excludes so many? Christy Galligan