The Catholic Church cannot seem to stay out of the news lately, and for all the wrong reasons. Yesterday, the Vatican released a document intended to defuse the sex abuse scandals currently rocking it, but they only succeeded in seriously offending both women’s groups and liberal Catholics around the globe. This is because the document included a provision that declared the "attempted ordination" of women as one of the gravest crimes in ecclesiastical law.
Since the document was predominantly dealing with the sexual abuse of minors, this provision seems to place the “offence” of ordaining women on a par with sexual abuse.
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said that the document was "one of the most insulting and misogynistic pronouncements that the Vatican has made for a very long time. Why any self-respecting woman would want to remain part of an organisation that regards their full and equal participation as a 'grave sin' is a mystery to me."
Vivienne Hayes, the chief executive of the Women's Resource Centre, said that the document was "appalling".
She added: "This declaration is doubly disempowering for women as it also closes the door on dialogue around women's access to power and decision making, when they are still under-represented in all areas of political, religious and civic life. We would urge the Catholic church to acknowledge that women's rights are not incompatible with religious faith."
Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, stated that: "We are sure that the vast majority of the general public will share in our abject horror at the Vatican's decision to categorise the ordination of women as an 'offence' in the same category as paedophilia – deemed to be one of the "gravest offences a priest can commit".
"This statement follows a series where the Vatican, an institution which yields great influence and power not only in the Catholic community but also wider society, has pitched itself in direct opposition not only to women's rights but to our equal worth and value. We hope this is an issue that the government takes the opportunity to raise if it still feels the impending papal visit is appropriate.”
It is mystifying why a document which was to purportedly help clean up the image of the Catholic Church would be used to make such a controversial and seemingly ill considered statement. What does seem certain is that the protests against this statement have only just begun and that the Vatican PR department has a lot of work ahead of it.
(To read this article in full, please go to http://guardian.co.uk).