Every year in my work as a part-time Police chaplain, I attend a two day seminar with many other chaplains – most of them ministers in the Anglican and Uniting Churches.

Last year one of the Anglican ministers said to me, in as many words, “I would become a Catholic and study for the Catholic priesthood immediately as I know our great weakness is that we have now so few unified beliefs in issues of faith and morals. This is not the case that I see in the Catholic Church. But what is stopping me is this obsession that the Catholic Church leaders have with an all male clerical culture, the silencing of women in most Church decision making and the lack of sensitivity to women in the use of language within the liturgy. I also see there is a lack of real collegiality amidst the bishops of the world. The Pope and the Curia have no accountability in what they say and do and they want to centralise authority in a way that is unreasonable and unfair.”

What saddened me was that I could not deny the validity of anything this man said, and that we as a presbyterate are being denied the ministry of men like him not just in Australia but throughout the world.

Martin Maunsell, Lane Cove NSW