Feminist and cultural historian Rianne Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade, Sacred Pleasure) credits the Pope with apologizing for the Church's treatment of women in the past, but would like to see him be less discriminatory toward women today.
"It is necessary that the Pope reexamine and declare in error specific policies espoused by the Church in relation to women, policies that, to this day, are unjust and discriminatory.
"The most visible example is the autocratic insistence by this Pope that the admission of women into the priesthood is not even open to discussion. The reason given is that women were not at the Last Supper, they were not Jesus's disciples. But to begin with, there is growing evidence from respected scholars and theologians that there were women disciples of Jesus. Second, flowing from this logic, there should also be no possibility for Asian or African people (read: males) to be priests, since obviously none of these were disciples of Jesus, much less present at the Last Supper. Barring women from priesthood is very political. It deprives women of moral authority, of the authority to say this is right and this is wrong, including what is, and has been, done to women."
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