Confusion

The Vatican has just announced a new list of candidates for the title of Doctor of the Church.  The list includes a number of women . Yet those same women would be excluded from so much in church life  - could certainly not be priests or  ever have any say in who would be pope. How does that work? In the  later days of the Latin mass they would not even have been allowed to serve at the alter.

Teresa of Avila has been often quoted as believing that she should be a priest – so she was presumably pro the ordination of women  or at least able to discuss or consider it as a possibility. Yet this is the same pope who has condemned others for this same feeling – forced a bishop to retire early for even mentioning it.

Is it any wonder that people are confused about the Church's position on this topic.