Mass boycott a wake-up call to the church

JENNIFER Sleeman’s call for women to boycott mass on September 26 should give all Catholics food for thought on the subject of how women are treated by, and within, their church.

The Vatican has made it clear that anyone who ordains a woman will be guilty of a grave sin, but it failed to elaborate as to whether the offence would be greater or lesser in the eyes of God or the church than the sin of child abuse — or the presumably sinful practise of moving clerical abusers to different parishes instead of standing up for their victims.

One thinks also of the grief and trauma inflicted in the past on thousands of women — mothers — whose babies were refused the dignity of a church-approved burial because they hadn’t been baptised. Their innocent souls, the church had people believing for centuries, were lost in Limbo and could never see the light of God.