In Philadelphia in 2015, British theologian Tina Beattie addressed a conference of Women’s Ordination Worldwide, a coalition of international groups supporting women’s ordination, formed in 1996. Beattie’s address explored the confusing, oftentimes contradictory, language on gender in official Vatican documents.

Though the church exhibits “a keen awareness of the extent to which women have been victims of injustice, violence and oppression,” she said, the Vatican has increasingly found itself in opposition to international and local movements calling for greater rights for women and children. The reason for this, of course, is the official church’s inability to move away from the traditional teaching on the distinctions between male and female that has formed Catholic theology over centuries.

More:  National Catholic Reporter