In the first place, I'm not sure that ordaining married men and women would solve the crisis -- there's been too much alienation, I think, of too many whose calling has already been rejected, or who would see it not as the Church recognizing the call of the Holy Spirit, but as a frenzy of fear for its own existence.

And in the second place, it's not lack of confidence that keeps us from bringing this up to the Pope -- people have been talking and urging the ordination of women and married men for at least 40 years (because I remember it being discussed when I was in college).  It's a hierarchy that refuses to consider  it and, frankly, a number of conservatives and traditionalists that fight it because it's not the "Catholic way."

Some would rather see us go without priests than consider change.  And the moment for change may already have passed.