"It’s shocking and very sad to juxtapose the openness of Sr Una Kroll with the closed, fixed-ness of Martin"

Very simple, Robin: I'm orthodox. All Catholics are required to assent to the Church's teaching that the ordination of women is an impossibility. That's not "closed", that's being Catholic.

“I can imagine non-Christians looking at our community and saying: “We’re not sure what they believe, but look how those Christians love one another!”


As is, however, Gandhi found it necessary to say this: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

It’s shocking and very sad to juxtapose the openness of Sr Una Kroll with the closed, fixed-ness of Martin (first comment). The only way forward for the Church and the world is to risk uncertainity, to take a step into the void trusting in the Spirit of God to save and sustain us.

Our human need for certainty encourages us to fix belief, to codify and nail down that which is a living and dynamic thing. Our human need for clearly delineated boundaries leads to division rather than unity, often imposing ‘us’ upon ‘them’. John Paul II’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was unhelpful in deciding once and for all time that the Church could not ordain women and his imposition of an eternal discipline was beyond his pay grade. Such statements hinder the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Sr Una talks of unity through diversity. Such an approach over the centuries would have saved countless lives and have given a more authentic witness to Christ than the great religious wars which have scarred the Body of Christ since the earliest times. In response to greater openness to the Spirit and unity through diversity, I can imagine non-Christians looking at our community and saying: “We’re not sure what they believe, but look how those Christians love one another!”

Una Kroll wries about wanting to see women bishops but not in to the current hieracrhy without renewed, reformed governance.

This is very relevant to women's ordination in the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. For women to be ordained as priests and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church this would require real collegiality, devolvement and cultural and gender diversity, for women to become truly part of the ordained ministry of the Church, rather than as an add-on to a current clerical,patriarchal structure.

Una Kroll's book Bread not Stones is clear, interesting and understandible for all readers working towards a renewed church. For campaigners, like me, who can get angry and prescriptive when the door remains firmly locked to them, this book offers some way forward that is loving, though firm and constructive. She has found a way of transforming past personal and structural wounds into a creative present. She writes about Unconditional Creative Love, how transformation happens and how she can now work with those opposed to her views if their work is "pointing to love." Una Kroll has spoken out all her life for others and I have found her work so helpful.

Pippa Bonner CWO (Catholic Women's Ordination.)

Pope John Paul wished to stifle discussion on the question of women priests with the hope that the issue would quietly go away. But it won't go away so long as Catholic lay people can observe for themselves how successful women priests have been in the Anglican Communion, with great pastoral benefits. Isn't that important? With the dearth of male vocations to the priesthood, it is just plainly absurd not to open up the priesthood to women if they genuinely feel they have a vocation. Well done, Sr. Una....for saying what, I suspect, most lay Catholics think!

With respect Martin I do not think it is an ontological impossibility to ordain women. Christ took his flesh from His mother. He redeemed us through his human flesh and divinity. To cling to Aristotelian biology that decreed that a human being came from the human male sperm implanted into a non-non-contributory female womb let to Aristotle's error: surely there is scope for more research into the very nature of our common humanity through a theological study of anthropology and relating it to Christology? I do not accept that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an infallible statement as defined in 1870 and I do not think the Catholic Church should be drawn into what sometimes feels like 'creeping infallibility'. I have the deepest respect for all papal statements and CDF's but I am not alone in mu opinions on this issue.

Really, Tablet, you're supposed to be a Catholic publication. This issue has been dealt with. Ordinatio Sacerdotalis put this to bed once and for all and the accompanying CDF letter was clear that all Catholics must give assent to the Church's teaching on the matter. A woman cannot be a priest. It is an ontological impossibility that they can receive orders validly. Why are you raking this up and giving publicity to such divisive and heterodox views?