(UNDATED) The Vatican still doesn’t get it about women.

Christianity is supposed to be about bringing people together, but the Catholic Church’s inability to effectively address the women’s ordination question is scattering its flock.

More and more women connect the dots between the bishops’ irresponsible oversight — try bringing up pederasty or financial funny business at any ladies’ luncheon and see what happens — and no women in authority.

Not long ago, members of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) movement took matters into their own hands. Literally.

The group’s leading bishops — two from Germany, and one from Austria — ordained four movement priests (all of them women) as bishops in California. Now a total of five U.S.-based women claim the same apostolic succession as every man in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

What to make of it all? Rome says the women are excommunicated, unintentionally lending them stature and even hope for future recognition. After all, Rome once excommunicated Archbishop Lefebvre’s four illegal bishops and they’ve all been welcomed back in the Vatican’s fold, including the very embarrassing Holocaust-denier, Richard Williamson.

Not so fast, you say. They’re women! Of course. And gender is the root and cause of the question. Can a woman be ordained a priest? The Vatican says no. The women say yes.

To complicate matters, other disconnected “Catholic” movements are more or less recognized as separate churches. In the U.S. alone, several tiny Old Catholic Churches correctly claim apostolic succession. Rome technically recognizes the priestly orders of these various splinter groups, along with those of the Catholic Apostolic Church, which began ordaining women in the 1960s.

But — and here’s the catch — when their clergy come to the Catholic Church, they are accepted as lay persons. So their women’s ordination has not been tested.

From Rome’s standpoint, it’s not a difficult test. The Vatican says it does not have the authority to ordain women as priests. Period. End of discussion. Rome argues that only men were at the Last Supper, when Jesus established the Eucharist, and hence the priesthood. The teaching is considered unchangeable, and the case closed.

RCWP, meanwhile, is pushing the envelope. In 2002, its core members and a former Roman Catholic bishop held ordination ceremonies on a boat in the middle of the Danube River. The “Danube Seven” — five Germans, one Austrian, and one American — received formal Vatican excommunication papers. The movement, unfazed and unruffled, soldiered on.

At least 40 women (and a few men) in the U.S. and Canada are movement priests, with a number of deacons awaiting priestly ordination. And they now have eight women bishops.

Most Catholic dioceses ignore other small, poorly financed “Catholic” groups. But as RCWP numbers grow, bishops are taking notice. RCWP hold public services of Eucharist, baptism, marriage, and anointing, and are not shy about advertising for new members. They also have significant underground support from active Catholic priests, support that sometimes spills into the public domain.

Where is it all going? The other day, one of my college classmates said she was thinking of becoming Presbyterian because the folks at her local Presbyterian church seem to have more fun. I suspect if the happily active group in town was connected to RCWP, she could be attracted to them instead.

I’m not crazy about the fact that RCWP has effectively started its own church, yet I can see the reasons why. Women are fed up with patronizing patriarchy.

Rome better learn how to split the difference, and learn soon. Women pass along the faith, and women bring their children (and husbands) to church. And women write the checks for Sunday collections. Unfortunately, more and more women will leave the church in the months and years to come, creating new flocks, following new shepherds — all over the question of whether a woman can represent Christ.

(Phyllis Zagano is a Fulbright Fellow in Religious Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland. She also holds a research appointment at Hofstra University.)