Altar girl

The archbishop allows us to have altar girls ... grudgingly. I love to see them at worship and pray for them, that if God is calling them to be priests, the Catholic Church will recognize their vocations.

An elderly woman said her brother, a priest, told her the future Church is in dire straits because our priests are increasingly old and infirm, and lack replacements. She groaned over the vision of a Church without priests.
I said, "There would be plenty of replacements if we would ordain married men. And women."
She glared at me and said, "There will NEVER be women priests in the Catholic Church!" 

I haven't given up hope. There are lots of Catholic women priests trained, ordained, and ready to serve. The first ones were ordained by a retired bishop in Germany, and now they have their own validly (though illicitly)* consecrated women bishops ordaining women priests. I attended a mass a few years ago led by a Catholic woman priest in Portland. 

The first women priests in the Episcopal Church, known as the Philadelphia Eleven, were validly though illicitly ordained by three retired bishops in 1974. Now there are many women serving as Episcopal priests and bishops, and Katharine Jefferts Schori was until recently the Presiding Bishop and Primate. May the Catholic Church follow this example!

Pope Francis, we need women priests! What are you waiting for?
Ordain a lady!

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Validly - A sacrament is valid if it is carried out with the right matter and the right words.
Illicitly - A sacrament is not licit if it goes against canon law. The ordination of Catholic women priests in Germany in 2002 was valid but not licit.

I say the rules that forbid women priests are illicit. They break God's law.