The article examines some of the problems at the centre of the current debate about the ordained ministry for women in the Catholic Church. It begins with a general panorama of the challenge which is issued ever more strongly by contemporary feminism to the Church about the place women have within it. A summary is then offered of the two most recent interventions of the Roman magisterium and then of the repercussions the last papal document is producing both in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and in theology. The article could not fail to give a rapid review of how this important question is being treated in the ecumenical dialogues. It concludes with a reminder of some catholic principles with respect to the infallibility of faith of the Church and with some conclusions in the light of what has been seen.