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So do you think that you are more compassionate and just than our Lord Jesus Christ? It is His action that we are following, not that of some man-made rule imposed by the Church after the fact.

Not at all; I fall short by far too much in both areas. What I think is that His choice of twelve men was culturally determined and not spiritually directive to us. He never chose a woman as a disciple, but he also never used the Internet to spread the Word. I think His non-ordination of women is a cultural detail, while His non-ordination of gays is a spiritual necessity. In any case, it's not my place to make that choice for the Roman Catholic Church, nor is it the place of a few rogue "bishops" with more loyalty to politics than to the Pope. The bishops are wrong to do this without authority.

What I think is that His choice of twelve men was culturally determined and not spiritually directive to us. He never chose a woman as a disciple, but he also never used the Internet to spread the Word.
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excellent point. certainly he would know, that many men back then, wouldn’t accept the authority of a woman.
makes sense...
except... He is Jesus.
he chose tax collectors, and touched lepers!
he talked to the woman at the well, and let her give him water. he intervened with the woman about to be stoned.

CLEARLY indicating, Jesus wasn’t afraid to go against the culture.
clearly indicating, that he was NOT bound, by culture.

and, even the early church followed the clear example of Jesus.
there were early church leaders that were women.
but not Priests.
so again, it is clear that it wasn’t for cultural reasons,
or women wouldn’t have been allowed to take leadership roles either.
it was only the Priesthood that was excluded.

one simply must conclude, that our Lord and Savior was FULLY aware of all of this?

and he chose only men for Apostles and the Priesthood, with laying on hands and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Thank you for your thoughts here, to which I would like to add what may be some useful counterpoints:

"I think is that His choice of twelve men was culturally determined and not spiritually directive to us." It's very dubious that this choice could be described as culturally determined. All of the cultures around Israel had both priestesses and goddesses. The lack of priestesses and goddesses must have seemed jarring in ALL the Gentile cultures into which Christianity surged in its first thousand years.
Nor was Jesus a cultural conformist, still less a cultural coward. He did plenty of things which went way past the expected bounds, when He wanted to. For instance, this business about "eating His body and drinking His blood" was naturally repellent, as well as ritually forbidden, to the Jews -- to whom He taught this doctrine forcefully and repeatedly. He wasn't crucified for playing it safe!
"He [Jesus] never chose a woman as a disciple." This is not true at all. The Gospels mention many women disciples: the Samaritan woman at the well, Mary and Martha of Bethany (recall that He specifically commended Mary for NOT doing the housework, but rather for sitting at His feet and listening to Him, which is exactly what the word "disciple" means), Mary of Magdala (the first witness of the Resurrection, the "Apostle to the Apostles"), the women of Jerusalem who supported the mission "with their means" (i.e. with their own money.).
"...but he also never used the Internet to spread the Word." Yet He and His Church did use women to spread the Word: from the prophetess Anna at the Temple, to Pilate's wife (the only person to speak in Jesus' defense at His trial) to Prisca, who with her husband Aquila was a noted missionary.
" I think His non-ordination of women is a cultural detail" Actually, as I noted above, it was a counter- cultural detail: if He were only conforming to "the world," He would certainly have had priestesses, as did the Romans, the Greeks, the devotees of Mithraism, the Phoenicians: anybody who was anybody in the ancient world.

"In any case, it's not my place to make that choice for the Roman Catholic Church, nor is it the place of a few rogue "bishops" with more loyalty to politics than to the Pope. The bishops are wrong to do this without authority." Good point, there. Very good point. "This one is not far from the Kingdom." :o)

The "cultural detail" argument doesn't wash.

As somebody explained up thread, the cultural norm at the time was priestesses, although the Jews did not follow that custom.

Anyhow, Christ broke cultural norms all over the place, from healing the sick on the Sabbath and allowing his disciples to pull and eat grain walking through the fields on the Sabbath, to consorting with tax-collectors and the Syro-Phoenician woman and publicans and prostitutes, to calling the Pharisees 'whited sepulchres' and driving the money changers out of the Temple.

Christ had no hesitance defying the culture, and if he had wanted to call women to the priesthood, he would have. After all, his blessed mother and Mary Magdalene were right there and the obvious choices, had he intended such.

And think about this: the priest on the altar stands in the place of Christ - "alter Christus" - and offers the sacrifice for his bride, the Church. A female cannot be the spouse of the Church, Christ's bride. It's not that it's forbidden -- it's ontologically impossible.