I belong to a church which, in large part, depends on women for its vitality. Yet, strangely enough, this church continues to deny women the power to shape its teaching and practice.

When growing up, I never gave any thought to this strange imbalance. Like most Catholic males, I saw church authority as quite properly vested entirely in men.

Going to a Catholic all-boys high school where the teachers were all priests helped cement this viewpoint. So did isolation from virtually any contact with women that marked my early seminary training.

By the 1960’s however, I had begun looking differently at the church and other structures of society.

The impact of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and theological study in Europe brought changes in my attitudes. And, of course, so did the women’s movement and the upheavals in American society.

The church’s present failure to avail itself of the great potential of its dedicated women members strikes me as bizarre. Since the church does not hesitate to pronounce on sexual issues, you might expect women’s views to be sought. But the Vatican does not care (or dare) to do so.

This April, the Vatican openly criticized the organization that represents some 80 percent of the 57,000 religious sisters in America. Rome finds fault with “the current doctrinal and pastoral situation” of the Leadership Council of Women Religious.

The Vatican blames the sisters’ leadership organization for being silent “on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States.”

You might have thought that instead of condemning the sisters’ position the rulers of the church might have entered into continuing dialogue with them on these important issues.

There are few subjects on which Catholic bishops are less convincing than those dealing with sexuality. The recent controversy about contraception as a health care right serves as a clear example.

(For the past forty years, most lay Catholics, and many clergy as well, have refused to consider contraception as a moral evil. The bishops, for reasons that escape many of us, have chosen to revive the issue.)

In last week’s statement, the bishops praised the religious women for the “great contributions” they have made “in the many schools, hospitals and institutions of support for the poor.”

But this recognition does not make up for church authorities accusing the sisters of turning away from what they call “the Christological center and focus of religious consecration.” This jargon sounds almost like a charge of heresy.

A prominent Catholic scholar at Notre Dame University, Scott Appleby, is among many who regret the Vatican’s action. “These are mature Christian women,” he says, “and to be placed in a kind of pen as if they were schoolchildren is humiliating and inappropriate.”

He attributes Rome’s action to the church turning in upon itself. A climate of fear, anxiety and insecurity would seem to have afflicted church authorities. The result strikes Appleby as self-defeating; the bishops find themselves insulting the women who have given extraordinary service to the church.

In the heady days of the 1960s, I used to think that before my death Catholic women would be ordained to the priesthood. I should live so long!

Papal decisions say such a reform will never be possible because it goes against the faith handed down to the church. That I do not believe, and I dare say a huge number of other Catholics would agree.

Some day in the distant future, I bet a papal document will begin: “As we have always taught” as it announces the ordination of women.