Pope Francis has supposedly shut the door on appointing women to the college of cardinals:
I don’t know where this idea sprang from. Women in the Church must be valued not “clericalized.” Whoever thinks of women as cardinals suffers a bit from clericalism.
According to John Thavis, “That would appear to rule out lay cardinals altogether.”
Parsing his words, that’s not exactly what the Holy Father said. He admits he doesn’t know where the idea comes from. People who advocate for women cardinals have a “bit” of clericalism in their make-up, according to Pope Francis. That may well be true. The Church could come up with worse ideas than women in the college. If the pope and the octocards have a better notion of what to do, I’m eager to hear it.
Check the lovely little lady on the left. She’s not so bright and red. Female birds are usually dull in color compared to their male counterparts.
It will be interesting to see how Pope Francis maneuvers himself around the idea of reform. The La Stampa interviewer didn’t really press him on the role of women. Maybe the role is for the next interview to be conducted by a female journalist.
Catholic Sensibility 
I’m not really sure what to do about women in the Church. It’s just a problem, and there is no real solution. I can see how every effort to fix this problem would backfire and simply make things worse.
I think we should appoint women Cardinals, ordain women deacons, and appoint more women to decision making bodies.
God bless
The interesting thing about Francis’ comment is that he’s pushing aside the idea of women being cardinals not because he doesn’t think that highly of women . . . but because he doesn’t think that highly of cardinals. And I think that’s a refreshing change.
One solution would be to make the college of cardinals have more limited functions in some respects.