"Search for Younger and More Progressive Pope"/Sudbury Star,Canada

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2013/03/01/search-for-younger-and-more-progressive-pope
..."Sudbury's Marie Evans Bouclin would disagree. Bouclin was ordained a bishop in the dissident Roman Catholic Womenpriests. The organization, which has male and female members, says its priests and bishops are valid because the consecrating bishops who ordained the first women are bishops with apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church.
Bouclin isn't harbouring a great deal of hope a more progressive pontiff will be elected, simply because all of the people that are going to be electing the next pope are basically of one stripe, they're of one political persuasion.
Bouclin said her hope -- and prayer -- is "these men are going to listen to the people who have taken the time to write to them and say: 'Look, here are the real needs of the church.' "
Reformed-minded people are calling for what German theologian Hans Kung calls "less pope, more Jesus."
The conclave who will select a pope will not be presentative of half the world's more than one billion Catholics who are women.
Bouclin points out Pope Benedict lumped women who dared to become priests in with pedophiles, "only we were more serious. We were committing a graver sin. I mean, we had to be if we were being ex-communicated," because not one pedophile priest has been excommunicated.
"We keep saying this, but I don't think people care."
Some church leaders, such as Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie, have insisted that once a man is a priest, he is always a priest, despite even criminal convictions.
Bouclin argues the church's position is "once you're baptized, you're baptized forever. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic."
Her hope, as a Roman Catholic woman, is that whoever is elected will listen rather than pontificate. Listen to the real needs of the people, listen to all the theologians that have been silenced, listen to the experience of the poor, especially poor women."
carol.mulligan@sunmedia.ca Twitter: @Carol_Mulligan