Okay, I'll take the...

...bait. After resisting for a few days, I have to refer to an article in the Times, "Pope Rebukes Priests Who Advocate Ordaining Women and Ending Celibacy" (my emphasis): 

Striking the tone that once earned him the nickname “God’s Rottweiler,” Pope Benedict XVI in a stern Holy Thursday homily denounced “disobedience” in the Roman Catholic Church, chastising priests who sought the ordination of women and the abolition of priestly celibacy. 

Referring to recent efforts by clerics in Austria and elsewhere, Benedict said that although such priests claim to act out of “concern for the church,” they are driven by their “own preferences and ideas,” and should instead turn toward a “radicalism of obedience” — a phrase that perfectly captures the essence of the theologian pope’s thought.

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In his homily, Benedict made clear that reforms could not go against church doctrine. He singled out “a group of priests from a European country” who had recently “issued a summons to disobedience.”

They did this to the point of disregarding church teaching and encouraging “women’s ordination, for which Blessed Pope John Paul II stated irrevocably that the church has received no authority from the Lord,” Benedict said.

In 1994, John Paul issued an apostolic letter saying that the church "has no authority whatsoever" to ordain women, citing among its reasons that the apostles of Jesus Christ were all men.

"No authority whatsoever?" Isn't the Pope the "authority?" Couldn't he just say, "Hey, we're doing this now?"

By the way, here's a link to that letter from Pope John Paul II. (It reminds me a little of Mitt Romney's explanations of why Romneycare was good for Massachusetts but not for the rest of the country.)