Quoting Hindu scriptures,  Zed says: Where women are honored, there the gods are pleased. Men and women are equal in the eyes of God and religions should respect that, Zed stresses and adds that time has now come for the women priests and bishops.

Zed suggested that theologians and canonists of the Church needed to address this issue urgently; re-evaluate Church doctrine, theology, male hierarchy and history; and give women a chance. Women should be ordained to priesthood and should perform the same functions as male priests. Treating women as not equal to men was clearly a case of discrimination promoting gender inequality.

Church’s Cannon Law 1024 says—Only a baptized man validly receives sacred ordination. Zed noted that there had been, however, some positive signs regarding status of women in Roman Catholic Church as Vatican invited women to participate in the Synod of Bishops in 2010 and 2008 and girls outnumbered boys for the first time at the altar servers gathering in Vatican in 2010, where about 60 percent of young pilgrims were reportedly female. Holy See being the largest religious organization in the world should show exemplary leadership in women equality to the rest of the planet, Zed pointed out.

He argued that reprimanding of the US Catholic nuns’ group, Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), founded in 1956, by Vatican for reportedly raising the subject of ordination of women and other issues was unfortunate. Mission of LCWR, an association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in USA, included “fostering dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations”, “developing models for initiating and strengthening relationships with groups concerned with the needs of society”, etc.

Roman Catholic Church, largest of the Christian denominations with about 1.2 billion adherents, is headed by Pope and headquartered in Vatican.