Women's ordination?

Women in the Anglican Communion will shortly learn whether they can be ordained. Whichever way the vote will swing on November 11, there will be disappointment and hurt on either side, possible defections and a period of estrangement and isolation for the losing camp.
Among Catholic women, the General Synod's vote will be carefully studied. Women's empowerment within their Church first emerged with the stirrings of the secular female liberation movement in the 1960s. As women demanded equal pay for equal work, control of their bodies and reproduction, and access to exclusively male institutions, a host of feminist theologians (Rosemary Radford Reuther, Francis Schlosser Fiorenza, and, in this country, Mary Gray) argued that full justice could only be attained through equal opportunities within the hierarchical Church. Women represent the majority of church-goers, women sew altar cloths and arrange flowers -why , then, they asked, should they not enjoy the same Church positions as men?
Such talk of Church chauvinism and male come-uppance has provoked unease and in some quarters downright antagonism among many Catholic traditionalists. The ensuing battle to represent both views of a woman's role within the Catholic Church has led to an increasing polarisation in our Church and to a plethora of pamphlets, splinter organisations and marginalised groups.
Both sides plunge their hands deep into Scriptural waters, and come up with endless quotations to support their stance. Read Genesis 2:18-25 and you'll find the newly rib-less Adam saying: "This is to be called woman for this was taken from man"setting woman squarely in her place as derivative of man. Look through any number of Proverbs, however, and you will find that sons are to pay equal attention to their mother's teaching as to their father's instruction. Arguments still rage over whether Jesus's appointment of 12 men as his apostles was meant to establish a pattern for all time, or whether it was merely a nod to social conventions of his day: Our Lord never issued any pronouncements on women priests, though both camps have adopted his behaviour towards women (traditional, some claim, pointing to his choice of disciples; enlightened, others argue, pointing to his choice of a woman to spread the Good News of his resurrection) as a blueprint for his views.
Caught in the cross-fire of these opposing factions, the bishops of England and Wales have decided to address their full attention to the question of women's role in the Church: through the National Board of Catholic Women they are exploring the feelings of their female "constituents" and devising strategies which would integrate women more fully in the hierarchical structure that is the Catholic Church.
Catholic tradition views the priest in his sacramental role in celebrating the Eucharist at the altar as representing Christ and a woman fulfilling that role would prove too distant from the image of Christ at the Last Supper. But whether we accept this tradition or not, we ought to follow in our bishops' footsteps and agree to include women more fully in the workings, the decision-making of a Church that claims to be universal. Priests need not fill the only role of authority In our Church we must explore alternative rungs in the hierarchical ladder, rungs that a woman may climb.