What will Cardinal Thomas Winning have made of the media furore over revelations that the Catholic church is giving financial support to girls as young as 12 who refuse an abortion? Winning, leader of Scotland's 750,000 Catholics, is generally shrewd and savvy about the press. Despite that, he well may be surprised by how strongly women have reacted to his scheme

Why so? Because the Cardinal is out of touch. Not with the world generally, but with half of it in particular: the world of women. Because, like the rest of his brethren in the Catholic church hierarchy, he knows hardly anything about us.

Anachronistic? You can say that again. What other organisation can you think of in the western world today that so stunningly and comprehensively ignores women? What other group of men manages to live a life so cut off from the real experiences of women?

In my 36 years as a card-carrying Catholic, and especially in my six years working for organisations within the Catholic church, I've met a lot of priests. Most of them have two women in their lives. The first is their mother, to whom, alive or dead, they are usually devoted. For some reason, priests' mothers tend to be a breed apart: women who single-handedly raised six, seven or eight children without a murmur of complaint, and for whom the only necessary recreation was a half hour's rosary recital each evening.

And if it's difficult to live up to the near-perfect image provided by the typical priest's mother, it's absolutely impossible to come close to the other woman in his life. She, of course, is the Virgin Mary, and as a paragon of uncomplaining virtue she puts even his mother in the shade. So here's the first problem with Catholic priests and what they think of women: you're not just talking high expectations, you're talking way-out idealism.

If the system was sensible, young men who felt called to life in a dog collar would be encouraged to learn a bit about women along the way. In fact, what happens is the exact opposite, because the first requisite for any youngster thinking of entering the priesthood is to leave the real world in which women and men coexist for the cloistered male-only enclave of the seminary. Once there, their only female influences are likely to be the cook, the cleaner and one carefully vetted tutor allowed in for half a day a week in order to counter criticism that seminarians don't get any contact with women.

With ordination, of course, comes the tacit agreement not to get involved sexually with women. For some Catholic priests, as we know, this proves difficult, and clandestine affairs follow. As long as they remain in the priesthood, though, a healthy, open, straightforward sexual relationship with a woman (or a man, for that matter) is out of the question.

So Catholic priests are either leading a celibate life that is, for many of them, lonely and devoid of the interaction that comes from close contact with a woman, or they are involved in a sexual relationship cloaked in fear, secrecy and guilt. Either way, it is a far cry from the ordinary experiences enjoyed by their counterparts in the Church of England. Whatever anyone may say about male Anglican priests, at least many of them have opportunities to connect in an ordinary way with a woman and, through her, with the wider world.

So far, so personal. But in the wider world of the institutional church there is even greater cause for concern. Here women - who have never approached the status of equal players - are in danger of having even their limited role seriously eroded. One reason is the decline in western Europe (and especially in Britain) of women going into religious orders. Nuns, after all, have always been among the few women to have the priest's ear: even at the Vatican, there are nuns in positions of significant, albeit invisible, influence.

And if you thought nuns were meek, mild and never said boo to a bishop, think again. If the Second Vatican Council, the mould-breaking movement in the early 60s which sought to redefine church policy, revolutionised anyone, it was its previously veiled women.

I recently left two middle-aged nuns praying at Cardinal Hume's tomb in Westminster Cathedral while I went for a quick prowl around the shops on Victoria Street. When I returned I discovered them engaged on a quest to see how many statues of female saints they could find. Only one, they reported, and it wasn't enough. Catholic nuns have moved on; leaving their convents to work within communities, changing both attitudes and attire. Many, in fact, have moved out entirely - and their loss from the power centre of the church is a loss for us all.

What, though, of the rest of us - the so-called "ordinary" women who have for centuries formed the backbone of the church's worshipping community? Well, it's still true that we make up the lion's share of most congregations, but even at parish level the influence of women is on the wane. It's not so much that the parishes have changed, as that we have. Too many Catholic parishes still pitch their newsletters at a community in which women stay home, mind children and bake cakes, and men go out to work. In my own parish, for example, what are nostalgically billed as "mornings of recollection for ladies" are held at 10am on weekdays; similar events for men kick off at 8pm.

Sometimes you get the feeling they're not so much behind the times as on another planet. Which, you might say, is where they should be, since the whole raison d' tre of the Catholic church is to help us get closer to God. But even here - or perhaps especially here - at the heart of the church, in its spirituality, a gulf has opened and is widening between the male clerics and the female reformers.

The Catholic church quite literally doesn't speak our language. What's more, it shows no sensitivity, no sign of understanding why it should. I have given up trying to explain to priests why I cannot bring myself to use the words "for us men and for our salvation" in the Creed at Mass each Sunday. I have given up trying to explain why I feel so strongly that women, as well as men, should be admitted to the priesthood so that they too can officiate at the worship that lies at the centre of the church.

Some women, of course, give up completely. They opt out of the church, or - and this is almost never publicised - they opt out of our church and into another which is more women-friendly. We heard a lot about the Anglican priests who embraced Catholicism rather than face up to women in their ranks after the Synod voted for female ordination, but we heard little about the Catholic women who embraced Anglicanism rather than be forced to share their spiritual home with these incoming misogynists. The Catholic church has never been in tune with the women in its ranks: now, on the eve of the third millennium of Christianity, it's more out of touch with us than ever.

Related story:
News: Catholic Church denies bribing pregnant girl