The all-male priesthood is no small matter
Otto Preminger’s film The Cardinal was released in 1963, when I was ten years old, so I guess it was some years later that it appeared on TV. I recall watching it with my mother. I watched many movies with my mother.
Early on, there’s a scene where a young priest tells his pregnant sister’s doctors that they must let her die in order to save her unborn child. I turned to my mother in disbelief. Would that really happen?
“Oh yes,” my mother assured me, placidly enough. “That’s the rule in the Catholic Church. The baby’s life comes before the life of the mother.”
Until then, I’d always pestered my mother about having another baby. I was the youngest of three and the only girl. I wanted a sister. But after seeing The Cardinal, I prayed she would never again take that risk. I knew…
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