_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Bishop ready for women priests
Controversial prelate leaves door open
Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe, Ireland, has indicated that he would favor the ordination of women as priests.

Bishop Walsh—who prefers to be known as “Willie”— told the Guardian newspaper that the Church had “missed out” by failing to put women in decision-making positions.

The Irish bishop said that he would happily ordain women to the priesthood “if the Pope and the Church generally changed its mind” on the issue. Pope John Paul II has written that the Church’s teaching on the all-male priesthood is not subject to change. But Bishop Walsh refused to accept the matter as closed, saying: “Who knows where the Spirit will lead us in the new millennium?”

The bishop made his comments in the context of a discussion on the looming shortage of priests in the Killaloe diocese. The number of new priests being ordained there is lagging well behind the number of retirements, and the diocese will soon need to bring in priests from other countries to serve in parish work.

Bishop Walsh is no stranger to controversy. In 2000, he was co-author of a report that suggested dropping certain Gospel readings from the Mass because they were deemed “liable to give contemporary society an undesirably negative impression regarding women.” And in 1997 he offered a public apology to the Anglican church for the Catholic teaching that Anglican ordinations are not valid.