text: Maybe the role of women "...in the church and the world" would be better served for a while, at least, by reversing the process.  We seem to always start at the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid and argue to legitimize women's elevation to share in the "upper echelons" and, ultimately, the apex. Of course the rationale includes the communitarian notion of Catholicism but usually as a contrarian to the status quo.
  Maybe the subject should be taken out of that box and viewed from The Parent Creator's perspective as Jesus "takes" us back, or "encompasses us" in the reflective "image" that is creation redeemed.
  As Bernard Lonergan, S.J. might say: the finality of creation is the totally differentiated and integrated "image" of God in Christ that becomes "known" to the Creator and affirmed mutually in the ecstatic "Yes" that is the Spirit. 
  Is that image a hierarchical triangle: Jesus-hierarchy/ordinary ordained/laymen/lay women in a confused ever-expanding "bottom" base?  Nooooo!!!!!!