In watching the Pope's funeral today (I work in a newsroom -- no escaping it), I was struck yet again by what I believe the Catholic church's biggest problem to be: no women running the show.

And the church seems to have gotten a get-out-of-jail free pass on this. We hear a lot about whether the Episcopal church (my own denomination) will or won't accept gay priests (we will. and mostly do), but the Catholic church is still mired in the middle ages on this issue of no-girls-allowed and no one ever mentions it.

As the camera panned across row after row of priests and bishops and cardinals from all over the planet, gathered in Rome for the funeral, I realized how jarring it is to see that many men, all convened for some major world event, without a single woman among them. Yet the Square was filled to overflowing with ordinary and extraordinary women from all over the world, to whom the church belongs just as much as all those men in silk robes and hats.

There are many things I admire about the Catholic church. But no matter how much it appealed to me, I could never raise my daughter in a religious tradition in which she could never be a priest.

Separate but equal (and I'd argue that nuns aren't equal anyway) doesn't work for me: not in schools or churches or politics.