And, as ej and Susie note: taken to extremes, requiring all priests to conform to Jesus’ identity is silly. Why is ethnicity fungible, but sex is not? No reason, other than it serves the interests of those who control the church and its vast resources, riches that derive in large part from the uncompensated labor of poor and enslaved men, and the labor of women of all classes.

And as for the notion that Catholics think women aren’t much more than animals, I don’t think that’s either hyperbole or anti-Catholicism. To believe that the only moral reason for sexual intercourse is for procreation is to absolutely deny that we have evolved beyond the level of animals. Even that assumes that no animal has ever engaged in sex for pleasure and I’ve no idea if that’s even true. Since it’s women who bear the cost of sexual intercourse without contraception, it actually is women who are doomed, by the Church, to be treated as nothing more than breeding animals.

There are lots of other reasons that I’d agree with your statement Historiann. This is just one.

All the apostles were Jews, so only Jews can be priests.

Logical, yes?

I do believe that the last time they visited the idea of female ordination, the bottom line was that women couldn’t be priests because Jesus was a man.

Infallible logic.

And there are plenty of Catholics out there that agree that the Catholis Church’s continued refusal to ordinate women is totally out of line. My very Catholic extended family took an informal poll on this issue last year, and all but one person, thought that it was high time that women were included in the clergy—and the objector was not the Catholuc priest of nearly 40 years, but a woman who felt that such a decision would create a church schism.

And, ej, or any other reasonable person: do you have any idea as to how I might possibly be a troll on my own blog?