Shocking but not surprising - Women priests

THE statement yesterday by Pope Francis that women will never be allowed become priests in the Catholic Church is shocking but not surprising.

Shocking, because for a Church of one billion members to ignore and diminish half its number is an affront not just to humane Christianity but to commonsense.

It also ignores the fact that women priests were not unknown in the early Church, before it became a patriarchal and hierarchal structure. Indeed, there is historical evidence that our very own St Bridget was not just a priest but a bishop.