However, changes may nonetheless be afoot at grass-roots level. Some Roman Catholic women, having grappled silently for years with their vocation, are no longer able to deny it. Although there is no official role for them to aspire to within the church, they are finding ways, often covert, of carrying out their calling to the priesthood. In some cases their communities support them; in others they are shunned.

By contrast, it is 11 years since the Church of England ordained its first women. Now working alongside their male colleagues as equals up to, but not including, the level of bishop, even that may soon be within their grasp – next year, the General Synod will debate whether to allow the ordination of women bishops. Already, of the 44 diocesan bishops in the Church of England, 39 support women bishops. But many women still remember being treated as outcasts for going public with their vocation. While their counterparts in the Catholic Church still meet bitter resistance, there are now 2,739 women ordained in the Church of England.

For this project, some of the Catholic women decided to step out of the closet, and be photographed in their role as "priests". Through the lens, they look no different from the other women also portrayed here, who already officially carry out their duties as priests in other Christian churches. Yet they could be ex-communicated for talking openly about, supporting, or acting on the call for women to become priests.

THE COVERT PRIEST

Soline Vatinel, a French Roman Catholic who lives in Ireland, has felt called to the priesthood for 30 years. After fighting it for years, she is now saying Mass for those who will accept her. "It’s not like I want to prove that it is my right," she says. "I just want to be myself.

"Many women have a sense of the calling, but they will not preside at a Eucharist. It’s breaking the rule of the Church and of a very powerful institution. It’s breaking a taboo as well."

Married with two teenage sons, Vatinel, 49, moved to Dublin to study at Trinity College, but traces her roots to the same region in northeastern France as Joan of Arc – a woman who felt called by God to undertake what was seen as a man’s mission. She believes that people are born with a calling, and became conscious of her own more than 30 years ago. For a 17-year-old, who had not been brought up with the idea of women being priests, it was a disturbing time. She felt that God was calling her to do something that was impossible, as her Church would not want her. The revelation took her to the brink of insanity, landing her in hospital after taking an overdose. "What was I to do with it? I might as well be dead," she remembers thinking.

As the call to the priesthood could take no official form, Vatinel says it remained buried within her through her marriage and the birth of two sons, when she studied theology and practised as a marriage counsellor. But 15 years ago, she felt she had no choice but to let the truth inside be heard somehow, no matter the consequences. Not letting it out was making her ill and depressed. She likens the process to that of a person dealing with the revelation of being gay, and then coming out. "I’ve tried putting it away… I won’t go back," she says. "If you suppress a part of yourself, it deadens you. It distorts your relationship with yourself, others and the world."

Vatinel began speaking about her calling with friends and neighbours. "Now I have the support of my husband, and a priest, and the people coming here," she says. She began presiding over Eucharistic celebrations about eight years ago. "Gradually, I have told more and more people. I’ve done it hundreds of times now."

She has had an audience with several bishops to talk about her calling. Some of them, she says, recognised the call within her, but insisted that it could not be lived out in a woman. She has also written countless letters to the Vatican. "I felt it was wrong for the Vatican to make a decision without having heard women with a sense of vocation. I felt that was my responsibility."

Although the road she travels is not easy, Vatinel is hopeful about the future. She believes that women will one day be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church, and that she is part of a new church in the process of being born.

THE WIFE-AND-MOTHER PRIEST

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