[trapped_in_LA]

1 Timothy 2:14 “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”

There is your reason right there, no matter how “holy” a woman may appear she is far easier to deceive and lead astray than a man is and she is also far more likely to rationalize her sinful desires like Eve did in the garden of Eden (in modern terms they call it the rationalization hamster which is a pretty apt description). So please stop putting women on a pedestal as they don’t really deserve to be placed there and it usually only makes it easier for them to kick you in the teeth as you’re bowing down to worship them ;)

[Mrs. Don-o]

With all due respect, trapped, I think you haven't quite hit the mark. Men and women have equal dignity ("In the divine image created He him; male and female created He them") sharing equally in human nature, and it is human nature --- and not just the male or the female --- which suffered the awful catastrophe of sin and its species-spanning consequences.

Tax-chick at #26 has got it right (take a bow, TC: it was well-said.)

It's about the "matter" of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. A woman could "represent" Christ in many analogous ways: as healer or shephers(ess), speaker, wonderworker, prophetess, national hero(ine), royal descendant of Abraham and of David, and in many other ways; but a female cannot embody Christ as priest and as sacrifice on the altar, since these are embodied by "a" "particular" male, Jesus Christ.

Perhaps it makes things clearer if I point out that a woman can live in CXhrist fully, can even say with St. Paul, "I live: yet not 'I', but Christ lives in me" -- but cannot embody Christ because bodies are always either male or female, and Christ was a male. Was, and is a male in heaven, and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, even now.