text: (Continued)
  Mary Ward, of 1600's England, tried to avoid the demands of being cloistered by the local bishop and eventually went to Rome (in 1621 and 1624) to plead her case of keeping the Institute she founded, the English Ladies at St. Omer in France, with teaching as their mission and having adapted the rule of the Jesuits, the entire group was suppressed in 1631 because Ward and her ladies refused to wear habits and live in monasteries.  So this is the historical record on which the view of women and their place in the Church rests.  So now we jump forward to 1994, and Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter "Priestly Ordination" which stated that the Catholic Church does not have the authority or faculty (power) to ordain women.  Then, the CDF under +Ratzinger, issued at the same time a commentary on "The Declaration concerning the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood" which showed the initiative for ordaining women is a fairly recent thing.
  
  Continued...