" Men Who Hate Women" by Erik Baker "Empowerment of Women, a Threat to Vatican Power"

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/teen-critic-takes-vatican-over-war-women
(read entire essay at link above)
Some highlights:
"...The Vatican's recent report excoriating the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a group that represents the majority of nuns in the US, has elucidated a stark truth that has become increasingly evident over the past few years: the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is deeply misogynist. The time for mincing words is over: the old male autocrats who run the church are dedicated to a platform that is defined primarily by opposition to women's rights. This latest brouhaha only makes clear that there is nothing that church leaders can stand less than the thought of women advocating for themselves.

The phrase "war on women" is admittedly overused, but nonetheless the utilization of military language is rather appropriate to describe the sustained campaign against the rights and health of women, especially in the US, that the right wing of the Church has helped to spearhead. It boggles the mind the degree to which Church leadership has demonstrated a flagrant disregard for basic human decency and a commitment to equality that flows quite clearly from the Gospel.

....There is nothing that terrifies the Church more than female empowerment. That is why the Archdiocese of Chicago protested in 2000 when controversial priest Fr. Michael Pfleger led his church in a campaign to buy prostitutes' time as a means of educating them about opportunities for counseling and job training. That is why the Church continues without any coherent rationale to oppose the ordination of women: the idea of allowing females to preach the Word on their own behalf and to serve as community leaders terrifies those who perceive a threat to their own oppressive stranglehold on religious power.

And that is why the old men in the Vatican felt the need to censure the "radical feminist" American nuns who see the message of Christ as one of empowerment of the disadvantaged and social justice instead of patriarchy. The document chastised the nuns for focusing too much on helping poor people, when God would really have them fret more about the threat that same-sex couples who love each other being able to marry poses to the American moral order.
It is no coincidence that the misogyny of senior Church officials is frequently connected in strange ways with the most disturbing of Church secrets. Like in 2010, at the height of the second wave of the child abuse scandal, when the Vatican officially decreed that the ordination of women was a sin as grave as sex with children... Eventually, I think it is inevitable that the faithful will decide that the Church's medieval attitude towards women has no place in our modern, advanced society. Let's hope that day is sooner rather than later."
Bridget Mary's Reflection:
What an insightful essay!Thank you Eric for demonstrating that young people today are aware of  and standing up to confront the profound injustices toward women in the church. 
Bridget Mary Meehan, arcwp
www.arcwp.org