Allow Women to Join the College of Cardinals

Avery Dulles's lucid essay on the female priesthood, or rather its impossibility within the Catholic Church, raises fundamental questions that go beyond the scope of the ordination of women: What is the church's relationship to its female members overall? And by what criteria do we judge the institutional church's response to women? If we judge by modern standards of equality and equal opportunity between women and men, are we not in danger of placing too much emphasis on social conditioning? A religion, and particularly the Christian religion, is not simply a moral system. It is born of revelation and obeys a tradition, and we must take that into account.