The XX camel's nose under the tent

What is a female camel called, anyway? A mare?
John Allen has a generally interesting column this week, (his explication of the coming storm over Church autonomy in the face of growing insistence by civil authority and secular society that the Church has no right to follow Her own conscience when she engages in Active Love* is ominous and omenous,) but this caught my eye.
When I read of tiny, barely noticed events like this one, I think of Spock saying, Only Nixon could go to China.
Only the unimpeachably orthodox can challenge and change the long-standing and frankly misogynistic, exclusions in Church work that have nothing whatever to do with the sacerdotal priesthood.
Some of TPTB have finally realized that as unconvincing as arguments from authority are in any case, even less credible were protestations that reserving ordination to men was not something the Church chose but something She had no authority over and have nothing to do with a lack of esteem for women, when it was clear that in a thousand little matters over which She DID have authority, women were excluded.
And the more the Big Boys allow women to exercise God-given gifts and talents, to bring their particular genius to the table, the more persuasive the Church's affirmation of the male priesthood becomes, when it stops seeming like just one more thing Girls Aren't Allowed To Do.
If only men can become priests, and then we arbitrarily tack on, oh, and by the by, only priests can this that and the other.... well, we end up with scads of positions and endeavors where, even if a woman is the best man for the job, the Church is out of luck.
(A little initiative in this direction might have prevented me from -- confession time her ... mea culpa -- defacing vocations posters in the vestibule when I was a kid, with pithy graffiti about discrimination.)
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1576
[H]ere's a small item worth recording, under the heading of "women and the church."It has long been observed that the Vatican is very much a "boy's club," and no corner of Vatican real estate is more a bastion of male prerogative than the window of the pope's private apartment where he delivers his weekly Sunday Angelus address.Imagine the raised eyebrows in Rome on Sunday, Jan. 27, therefore, when a young Italian girl appeared from that window to deliver a brief talk related to Catholic Action's annual "Month for Peace."In the past, two members of Catholic Action, often a boy and a girl, have appeared alongside the pope on the occasion, usually to help him launch a dove into the sky as a symbol of peace. This was the first time ever, however, that a female actually stood behind the papal lectern and addressed the crowd in St. Peter's Square.One shouldn't over-interpret the significance of the gesture, but in a small way it does suggest that even in the papal apartment, doors (or, in this case, windows) are opening for Catholic women.

*Caritas, of course.
Another item in the case for a "dead language": the meaning of the word "charity" in English has evolved to a place that makes its use in spiritula or theological matters unfortunate at best. What we are talking about is ACTIVE Love, Love that shows itself in working for the good of the Beloved.