The latter questions in the article hit home for me.  Why are Western concerns and understandings of equality and spiritual roles pushed aside when they conflict with social and cultural roles among non-Western Catholics -- many of whom go along with "woman as lesser vessel"?  The same hierarchy so worried that Western European and North American Catholics aren't reproducing enough and Roman Catholicism might become Sino-Afro-Hispanic Catholicism with a focus south of the equator.  When it comes to the issue of women's roles, it appears a mighty convenient excuse.