To paraphrase former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he was trying to explain difficulties in prosecuting the war in Iraq:  "You reform the church with the hierarchy you have, not the hierarchy you wish you had."

The great issues that vex the Church like the role of women, the age of time-limited marriage, human sexuality, corruption and complicity in the sexual abuse and exploitation of children CANNOT be addressed with the hierarchy and priesthood as it is presently composed.  Papa Francesco understands that better than anyone else.

Francesco seems to have set a strategic course of first changing the hierarchy and priesthood, then change the doctrine and praxis.  Slow, but sure and steady ...