This isn’t what the Vatican had in mind when it said in the recent document on women in the Church that the world needs to recognize and accept the unique gifts of women:
Beneath the Roman Catholic Church’s glass ceiling, a gathering crowd of women is gaining power and loosening the rigid structures of a centuries-old, male-centered hierarchy.
On Sundays, a divorced mother of two grown sons helps conduct Mass at St. Julie Billiart church in San Jose. Standing side by side with the Rev. John Pedigo, Jeanine Jensen leads prayers and joins in accepting bread and wine brought to the altar for the consecration. It’s just one of her many duties as paid pastoral associate.
Leads prayers? Accepts the gifts? Sounds like she’s doing the priest’s job. This isn’t about accepting women for their unique gifts; it’s about giving them the “work” that men, i.e. priests, do.
