"The Catholic situation is even more volatile. American Catholics have become accustomed to worshipping in a state of cognitive dissonance, with a majority rejecting the church's sexual teachings, and an overwhelming majority (something in the range of 98 percent) dismissing its strictures on artificial birth control. This is relatively easy to do, because these issues don't come up very often in Mass.
By contrast, the majority of Catholics who support women's ordination are confronted on the altar with the all-male priesthood every time they go to church. At the moment, frustration about the issue is muted because Pope Francis has inspired so much good will among the faithful — and raised such high hopes for reform. That has given the church some breathing room.
But it isn't going to last. As I've argued at length, there is no indication that anything of doctrinal substance is going to change under the new pope — and least of all on the ordination of women, a subject on which Francis has explicitly endorsed Pope John Paul II's position, which unequivocally dismissed the possibility. Sooner or later — and probably sooner — egalitarian-minded Catholics are going to lose their patience with the hierarchy's unpersuasive defenses of the status quo.
And they are stunningly unpersuasive. Here is the argument in its entirety: Christ chose 12 men to be his apostles; they in turn chose men to help them spread the word of God; today's priests and bishops are the direct descendants of these original apostles; therefore, the church doesn't have the power to ordain women.
The church would be on much firmer ground if the Gospels recorded Christ explicitly stating that he chose men to be his apostles because it is God's will that only men can serve in that role. But of course he said no such thing. A weaker but at least potentially defensible argument would involve some sort of claim about the nature of women being incompatible with ordination. But the church makes no such argument. Alternatively, the church could appeal to a popularly held gendered vision of God like the one affirmed by the Mormons. But the church doesn't do that either.
As it is, Catholics are left with: This is the way we do it, because we've always done it that way, and we can't change, so drop it.
The ideal of equality has transformed the family, the workplace, the military, the political world, and countless other areas of life — and the church thinks it can hold back the tide with this?
I'll go out on a limb and predict that it isn't going to work.
When parishioners finally get fed up, the only remaining question will be whether the church will respond creatively and adapt to the demands of justice and equality — or if, instead, it will choose intransigence. And watch the People of God march right out the door."
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