I hope (well – sort of!) that not too many of my fellow Catholics shared my odd and uncomfortable mixture of rejoicing and sulking at the news that Zara Mohammed was elected

I hope (well – sort of!) that not too many of my fellow Catholics shared my odd and uncomfortable mixture of rejoicing and sulking at the news that Zara Mohammed was elected – and, as a matter of fact by a comfortable majority of mainly male voters – last month as secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain: the first Muslim woman to hold such a senior and important role in her faith community.

I am rejoicing because yet another woman has broken through the glass ceiling of gender exclusion; and moreover in a place which may not have seemed obvious to an outsider. I am “sulking” because this means that the Roman Catholic Church has become about the only major faith which does not seem able to work out a way around its undeniable discrimination against women – despite the unique status we claim for Mary.

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