Pope Benedict was leaving himself open to challenge when he remarked in an interview that women "are very present in the departments of the Holy See". It was a tacit invitation to delve into the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican's Year Book, and count them. The result, according to our Rome correspondent Robert Mickens, is that no more than 15 per cent of the named total of officials of the Holy See are women. There are more than that in Vatican City as a whole, of course, but employed in the more traditional female tasks of cleaning, cooking and clerical work. But whatever the statistics, the Pope wanted to see more of them. He said the Church had to try not to stand in their way but, on the contrary, "to rejoice when the female element achieves the fully effective place in the Church best suited to her".

 As a statement of policy for this pontificate this is refreshing, notwithstanding the question begged at the end. Pope Benedict also offered the qualification that Canon Law reserved decision-making powers in the Church for the ordained, which meant men. Yet the true function of the staff of the Holy See is to advise the Pope, not to make decisions for him. There is no reason why women should not give advice at any level.

 The small proportion of women in key positions is unlikely to be due entirely to direct discrimination, though that may happen and the Vatican does not style itself as an "equal opportunities employer". There are many structural and institutional reasons why women are so thinly represented. In secular employment, where an organisation has an unconscious bias on grounds of gender or race, it sometimes requires independent advice and careful discernment to see where the problems lie. The Vatican could do worse than take such advice itself.

For instance, appointment and promotion in the Vatican may depend on informal networks of friends and acquaintances. Insiders often remark how tribal the Vatican is, ...

To adapt Winston Churchill's famous phrase, jaw-jaw has replaced war-war in the Middle East, at least for the time being, and that has to be a change for the better. Israel now has to digest the rough handling its army received from Hezbollah, decide whether the campaign was a catastrophe or not, and if so, whom to sack. The Government of Lebanon has to begin the huge task of reconstruction following Israel's ...

A few days before the International Aids Conference in Toronto, a report on HIV-Aids in Africa by the mainly evangelical agency Tearfund has concluded that church congregations all over Africa are in the front line in dealing with the depredations of Aids. Working with extended families, they are particularly notable in the care they give to the millions of orphans the epidemic has produced. The report calls for a ...

So far, the usual long, hot summer of sectarian tension associated with the marching season in Northern Ireland has passed without a single soldier on the streets. Gradually the old hatreds seem to be diminishing, for which some credit has to go to the Nationalist community's traditional foe, the Orange Order. The Government has proposed turning the annual Orange marches, once the focus of anti-Catholic antagonism, ...

The citizens of Britain, like those of other Western countries, think it normal to fly abroad on holiday, sometimes several times a year. They think it normal for families to own several cars. They timetable their lives around rapid travel and high consumption of energy. This week the Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, asked them to consider what they are doing to the planet. Climate change is accelerating ...