Is a patriarchal clergy the elephant in the room with the poem's death?

[mids2019]

Watching coverage the pope's passing and it is immediately obvious all the clergy of the Catholic church are male and although we there may be question a over who is next poor one thing is certain it's not going to be woman.

In the 21st century are the major religions going to the be the only large human institutions where the dominance of men and the exclusion of women is going to pass without serious challenge due to the inherent conservative nature of religions and the reference in which they are held?

It was amazing how many educated women presenters and pundits have made comment on the death of the pontiff without raising in the slightest way the fact we are seeing swathes of men entering the Vatican with possibly a few nuns in support.

Is this a real problem or one where women will always feel that history and articles of faith makes this a reasonable postion?

On the whole, it is mostly women who go to church nowadays, so extraordinary to have so many men in positions of power. To be fair to the C of E and nonconformist churches, there are more and more women clergy including in senior positions.

The gospels they allow us to know about. There are quite a few others.

I wonder why they aren't all that keen on letting people read the Gospel according to Mary Magdalene...

Would recommend the book Women Remembered by Joan Taylor and Helen Bond to anyone interested in women in the NT.

There's an interesting trilogy of books written by Maggie Whitehouse about a fictional cousin of Jesus, who was raised as his sister and who sees him growing up and starting his ministry. It's a thought provoking read, even if you don't agree with the premise or some of the stuff in the books. 'The book of Deborah' is the first one; the second and third follow Deborah into later life, post Jesus' death and resurrection.

I remember as a girl in Sunday school reading about the witch of Endor and Queen Jezebel the unrepentant Baal and Asherah worshipper , my heroines, and I realized there were other possibilities 😊