But while women are grossly under­represented in the membership of political parties, which at least pay lip service to the notion of equal participation, women form the majority of most Church congregations.

And yet the Churches have been most effective in their opposition to social changes which are crucial to women. The long and tedious history of Christian opposition to contraception, sex education, abortion and the right of women to work is well documented.

The role of women in sustaining the Churches is not. Women: Faith and Fetes edited by Sabine Willis provides an insight into the contribution women have made.

As missionaries, pioneers, money-raisers, social workers and administrators women have been the backbone of these male supremacist institutions.

Irish nuns arriving in nineteenth century Australia were dismayed to find that the local bishops had no respect either for their vocation or their traditional autonomy; they were used as pawns in the power struggles of the male hierarchy.

While the nuns established and ran school systems in remote and primitive conditions, they were subjected to staggeringly petty tyrannies by the male clergy. They won a few skirmishes against the bishops but their only court of appeal, the Vatican, was too far away to allow for really effective resistance. So they were subsumed in a way not possible in Europe.

This collection of essays reveals an extraordinary commitment and strength in the women it deals with. But it is a depressing book because, despite the achievements of these women, and others like them, the established Churches in Australia remain rigidly male defined.

And the women themselves, with one or two exceptions, appear resigned to their ‘greater virtue’ of self-abnegation in face of the appalling arrogance of their masters.

But people are working to undermine this male hegemony; and if only because of the political power of the Church, their work deserves support.

Kevin Giles has put forward a theological argument for the ordination of women in Women and their Ministry. Although he views women as having a special feminine vocation, he is adamant that true Christianity does not permit the exclusion of women from any level of the Church hierarchy.

However, he makes the mistake of attributing good will to his opponents. The refusal to allow women into the priesthood has very little to do with ‘theology’; it is, and always was, a means of social and political oppression.

There is a growing spirit of rebellion among Christian women, but their struggle will be unpleasant. One of the American women ordained (illegally) in Philadelphia in 1975 speaks of an occasion when she was giving communion to a young male priest. When she offered him the wine, he dug his fingernails into the back of her hand and said ‘I hope you burn in hell’.