NEW YORK (NY)
The Associated Press
August 23, 2018
By David Crary
Advocates of ordaining women as Roman Catholic priests cite the church’s unfolding sex abuse scandals as powerful arguments for their cause, while acknowledging the high unlikelihood of achieving their goal anytime soon.
Even with extensive grassroots support for letting women become priests, Pope Francis and the Vatican’s male-dominated hierarchy have stressed repeatedly that a men-only priesthood is a divine mandate that cannot be changed.
“I don’t see any movement to ordain women on the horizon, although I wish I did,” said Margaret McGuinness, a religion professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia. “The people in power aren’t going to look at this as a solution.”
In the United States, an organized campaign advocating for female priests dates to the 1970s, and its leaders have seized on the new sex abuse scandals — in which the alleged perpetrators are male clergy — to help make their case.
The most notable scandals: allegations that ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick molested at least two minors, as well as adult seminarians, and a Pennsylvania grand jury report alleging that about 300 priests sexually abused at least 1,000 children in six dioceses since the 1940s.
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