As a lifelong Catholic I have scores of Catholic friends. Of those, I can count on my fingers the number of their daughters and granddaughters who are practicing Catholics. Adding my toes would be enough to cover their sons and grandsons.

Yet most of my friends' progeny are deeply spiritual individuals. Sadly, they have found other ways and other venues to express that part of themselves.

The church can remain an ossified all-boys club with a formulaic approach to the Great Mystery at the heart of our vast universe, but it is losing the young in droves.

And I have no sympathy for an institution that considers 51 per cent of the human race unfit to participate fully in its leadership, its ministry and its visioning. Without the wisdom of women, the church continues to shrivel. and offer less and less of true value to our suffering world.