WOMEN RALLY TO JOIN PRIESTHOOD
WHAT'S NEXT? BLACKS TO JOIN KKK?

According to the Australian Association Press (3/25/95), Women 
and the Australian Church (WATAC) sponsored a protest in 
Melbourne on March 25 to demand that women be allowed to become 
priests. More than 300 people took part in the rally, which 
included a cross-carrying procession. WATAC spokeswoman Annie 
Cantwell-Bartle said that "The church is in a state of crisis -- 
only 17 per cent of Catholics are actually attending church." 
The solution, according to Ms. Cantwell-Bartle, is for the 
church to give greater authority to women in its hierarchy and 
to ordain women as priests.

Sexism is one of the roots of Roman Catholic thought. It was a 
father of the church, Tertullian, in fact, who said of women:

     "Woman, thou should ever walk in mourning and rags, thy 
eyes full of tears, present the aspect of repentance to induce 
forgetfulness of your having ruined the human race. Woman, thou 
are the Gate of Hell!"