The only Pope alleged to be a woman was Pope John VIII (853-856). Supposedly revealed by the birth of a child to be a woman, Pope John was 350 years later called Pope Joan by the Church, although still later, it was denied that she actually existed. Modern scholars are still disputatious about her. Many stories about her life sound outrageously unlikely.
I can't think of a better time for another female Pope, or, if Joan is apocryphal, the first one. I nominate Pam Solo, a nun and an old friend from my Denver days whose career as an activist won her a MacArthur Genius Award.
Pam Solo is
an internationally acclaimed proponent of grass-roots activism, is the founder and president of the Civil Society Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to supporting and encouraging the involvement of community groups and individuals in the public life of the country. CSI is currently spearheading the Campaign to Put Learning Back in Public Education as part of it's Results for America Campaign. Pam is the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, is past president of the Social Venture Network (an alliance of 500 CEOs committed to socially responsible business principles), and is the former executive director of Cultural Survival (a group that has helped indigenous groups in Central America to achieve economic self-sufficiency). She was a consultant to the Multilateral Investment fund of the Inter-American Development Bank and a professional staff member of the House Armed Services Committee Panel on Burden-Sharing.
As a lapsed Catholic, I know even the suggestion that a woman be elected Pope is enough to set the teeth of some of the unlapsed on edge. And I know that many believers newly brought into or brought back into the fold by John Paul II's traditionalist reign would be shocked out of their Catholicism by such a departure from this most ancient Church doctrine, as if those who went all goggly-eyed over The Da Vinci Code had been given the keys to the Vatican.
To some among us lapsed sheep, however, the unwillingness to even consider more than half the world's Catholic population ever eligible as candidates for the post of Vicar of Christ speaks volumes about the official Church's real views of humanity.
Cross-posted from The Next Hurrah.