Twice last year i used your columns to raise the question of admitting women to the priesthood. On each occasion a short flurry of largely supportive correspondence ensued. Meanwhile, in private, I have continued to receive a steady flow of letters, many of them expressing deep frustration that this passionately held subject never seems to get off the ground for open discussion within the Church. Clearly the official stance of the hierarchy is not to enter into any such discussion, deeming as it does that the ordination of women is inadmissible.

But why exactly? That is the key question. Surely to insist that the constant tradition and teaching of the Church has forever foreclosed on the issue is to elevate its adherence virtually to a received article of credal faith, which, patently, it is not. Such, however, is the heavily, and at times stiflingly, hierarchical nature of our Church that for a balanced debate to flourish, it needs some official oxygen. That means someone in the Bishops’ Conference being willing to engage publicly, if only to explain convincingly why this issue cannot or even should not be a fit subject for public debate within the household of faith.