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The priests are debarred from female society, nor is any woman permitted to enter the religious houses.

The Catholic Church has never really come to terms with women. What I object to is being treated either as Madonnas or Mary Magdalenes.

It's perfectly fair that you can't be a Roman Catholic priest unless you're a man. It seems right that the reach of anti-discriminatory law should stop at the door of the church or mosque.

Every minister knows it's harder to get the guys to church than the women. We ought to be asking why this is.

It's just so hard sometimes to work out where people stand on these things. I mean, isn't the Pope a feminist?

The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution.

I can't speak to the differences within the Catholic Church.

The question of whether women should be made bishops once they had been ordained is absolutely pivotal. It seems to me absolute nonsense for women to be ordained to the priesthood but not to the episcopacy because the two are inextricably linked.

Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.

The pope is an intelligent man and realizes that time marches on. He says the Church has a long way to go in developing a real strategy that integrates women - but clearly he is baffled as to how to do it.