The ordination of Mother Frances Meigh by the dissident Bishop Pat Buckley is a deliberate challenge to the Catholic Church's ban on women priests - a challenge embodied in the striking and memorable photograph in yesterday's editions of Mother Meigh lying prone, arms outstretched, during the ceremony. But just as challenging in its own way, though not deliberately so, was the ordination at Christ Church Cathedral last Sunday of Rev Lynda Peilow who, at 24, has the distinction of being the Church of Ireland's youngest priest.
In time, women priests may become a commonplace sight in this country, but for now the sight of Rev Peilow, with long, fair hair falling around her clerical collar, is undeniably arresting. The Church of Ireland could hardly dream of a more positive and engaging image for our times. In a recent interview for this newspaper, Rev Peilow acknowledged the significance of her ordination - and that of other female ministers - for women in the Catholic Church: "I suppose sometimes I think about other women out there, around my age, who would love to do what I'm able to do, but they can't because they're Catholic," she said. "I feel sorry for them. I mean, I don't know what I'd have done if I couldn't follow my calling."
Those words must resonate with Catholic women who feel they are called by God to a ministry from which their church debars them. It would be facile to pretend that the Vatican's opposition to ordaining women is based merely on misogyny and outmoded tradition. But it would be equally misguided to dismiss the demand for female ordination as a "women's issue" (as if that diminished its importance) or to reduce it to secular terms. It is in fact an issue of the greatest significance for the church, raising profound questions about justice, power and the credibility of Catholic moral teaching, especially on matters of social equality. And there is also no doubt that many of its proponents genuinely feel called to priesthood and believe the stirrings of feminism within the church to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.
"In baptism there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Jesus, the Christ," St Paul wrote (Gal. 3:28). Yet in past times the church tolerated anti-Semitism, racism and slavery - abuses it has now admitted and rejected. In his Letter to Women of 1995, Pope John Paul II went some way to doing the same with sexism, apologising for the marginalisation of women and calling for a "campaign for the promotion of women". However, while talking of the need to achieve "real equality in every area", he made it clear that the priesthood was still strictly for men only.
This week's female ordinations, in their different ways, remind us that the issue of women priests - like that of clerical celibacy - will not go away. Instead, it is likely to be the greatest challenge facing the institutional Catholic Church in the coming century. It is to be hoped that the church can learn to welcome unreservedly what the Pope has called the "genius of women" and allow the question to be aired fearlessly and openly. For there can be no true unity without openness; and suppression of honest debate is the path to disheartenment and schism.