The Catholic Church excludes women from the pool of potential candidates for the papacy, and even their expertise from the selection process, writes Maurice O'Connell
As preparations are made for the conclave of cardinals which will elect a new Pope, it is timely to ask why no women will be permitted to be members, let alone candidates for the vacancy. No woman has ever been recorded as a member of the conclave, but an argument based solely on precedent is weak, as shown by the issue of the vernacular in the liturgy.
Whether a woman can be a cardinal has little to do with the ordination of women to the priesthood. In recent times, all cardinals have been priests. But this was not always so. The role and function of cardinals - qua cardinals - is not sacerdotal or priestly, but administrative or "political".
Liturgy may surround the conclave. It is not itself a priestly event, but simply a meeting of special people appointed by the previous Pope or Popes for this specific task (among others).
After prayer, they are guided by the Holy Spirit and they elect a Pope. Catholics believe that, insofar as the conclave is the chosen method by which the spiritual representative of God on Earth is selected, the Holy Spirit has prevented cardinals from error in that sphere.
Although Catholics believe that the church is "of divine institution", nobody today would argue seriously that the organisation does not exist, as it were, in parallel in the temporal world.
Its prime role may be to spread the Word of God and to be a means of salvation. It also has bank accounts and has to clear the drains. It does not take a back seat on serious temporal matters affecting this planet. Nor are cardinals pure spirits.
They may open themselves to the Holy Spirit in the conclave; they also have to live in and work in the "daily" church which will be ruled by the man whom they elect - and in the world in which that church exists and must survive temporally.
On a temporal, or even a spiritual level, how focused is this election process? The church is not quite the same as "other" merely temporal organisations.
It has nevertheless to be evaluated for efficiency as a temporal entity in an environment which is hostile and competitive.It has a very peculiar attitude towards what most pro-active and dynamic organisations regard as their major asset - their human resources. The institutional church, deliberately and as a matter of policy, excludes more than half of its personnel from senior management, has only limited mechanisms for consultation and policy formation with that half, and certainly does not include it in high-level decision-making. It excludes women from roles for which they might "eminently" be qualified, were it not for gender alone. In particular, it excludes them from the pool of potential candidates for the post of chief executive - and even their insights and expertise from the selection process.
Women appear quite frequently in the New Testament. While one should be very careful not to read back 21st century constructions, what do these appearances tell us about the way in which Jesus "allowed" women to behave towards Him, the way in which He treated them, the input which they had into the community of His first followers?
At the marriage feast of Cana, having discovered that the party had run out of wine, Our Lady goes to Jesus and asks Him to "do something about it". Jesus brushes her off. She ignores the brush-off and simply orders the servants to do whatever He tells them. Jesus effectively capitulates and does as she "advises" Him. At Bethany, Jesus makes it clear that the role of women is not just "to make the tea". It is the women who stayed with Jesus to the end at Calvary. It is they, not the men, who were there, immediately after His Resurrection, when, in effect, the history of the church really begins.
Cardinal Ratzinger's recent letter to the bishops on the role of women in the church was greeted with opprobrium. However, hidden beneath the apparent condescension, Ratzinger declares that, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were equal in the sight of God.
He says that the subordinate position of women in human society after the Fall was due to original sin - and not ordained by God. The implication we have to draw is that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we have to reject that subordination of women and to look at all human beings with the eyes of Jesus. He came to proclaim a new law based on love and recognition of all rather than punishment, domination and regulation.
In Galatians 3:28, St Paul wrote: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one." Specifically, we are required - with the eyes of Jesus - to examine how the institutional church treats women and the roles it allocates them.
The exclusion of women from the conclave (and from a formal role in the governance of the church) flies directly in the face of the very centre of the message of Jesus Christ: that we are all His brothers and sisters, all children of the One Loving God (and valued equally by him), all entitled to share in our inheritance and our responsibility), all part of the community of believers called the church.