Maureen Dowd lands on the Catholic Church hierarchy with both feet in her column:

[MineralMan]

10. Not only has the Roman Catholic Church institutionalized

discrimination against women, it has done far worse. It has made that discrimination part of its religious doctrine and claims that such discrimination is the will of the deity that church worships. In doing so, they have extended a social evil to the status of a commandment from God. What that does is allow men who claim association with the religion to discriminate against women freely, since the church says that God told them to do so. Further, for women who believe in the tenets of that church, it depersonalizes them and tells them that they must submit to such discrimination, under penalty of going against a deity, something that religious people fear.

For this, I cannot support the Roman Catholic Church in any way, and consider it to be a plague on modern civilization for keeping ancient prejudices alive and thriving, despite all we have learned over the centuries. I do not understand how any woman can subscribe to that church's noxious doctrine, and have little respect for men who do so as well. Human beings have learned many things since the RCC was founded. We have learned, but the Church has not.