Measured against the expectations of many educated Catholic women, however, especially in the developed world, the pope has often seemed a disappointment. The sense of alienation can be profound.
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Naturally, not every Catholic woman feels this way. Some believe the pope, with his doctrine of male-female complementarity, as well as his defense of life and of the family, coupled with his fierce devotion to the Virgin Mary, has pointed the way to a more authentic “new feminism.” Defenders also point out that the pope has appointed an unprecedented number of women to pontifical councils and academies.
In 1988, John Paul even published an encyclical letter on the dignity of women titled Mulieris Dignitatem, which affirms the contemporary women’s movement as a positive “sign of the times,” though it also warns against the “masculinization” of women.
At the end of the day, however, even the staunchest defenders of John Paul tend to acknowledge that the Catholic church has a problem with women. A bishops-sponsored survey of Australian Catholics in 1999 reached a conclusion that has parallels across much of the Catholic world, finding a widespread sense of “pain, alienation and often anger resulted from a strong sense of women’s marginalization, struggle, disenfranchisement, powerlessness, irrelevance and lack of acknowledgement in the church.”
Oh really, Mr. Allen? I haven't had any problems with the Church, and I've been active in my Parishes since I was a teenager, 35 yrs. ago! The problem I have with some women in the Church is when they want the Church to change to suit themselves and their chosen lifestyles rather than looking at how they might change their selfish and sinful ways to live in the Lord.