Pope Francis This Week: "All Walls Fall. All of Them." Pope Francis Last Week: The Ban on Women's Ordination Is A Last Word, Forever.

"Dear brothers and sisters, all walls fall. All of them. Do not be fooled."
-- Pope Francis on eve of US electionhttps://t.co/7DY9sP4eLB

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) November 7, 2016

Good. Wonderful. Yes.

But does Pope Francis listen to his own words? 

All walls fall. All of them.

These inspiring words come within days of the pope's reiteration that the ban on ordaining women in the Catholic church — the biggest wall imaginable between men and women in a major global Christian church — is forever. Can't be rethought. Because a previous pope said so.

We can listen to Pope Francis' words about all walls falling eventually with receptive ears only if we choose to believe, as I see liberal American Catholic defenders of Pope Francis tweeting in the past few days, that his concern is with the real poor — not with pseudo-poor people.

Like women.

But some of us are not convinced by that ploy, which refuses to grant that discrimination against women is real, destructive, global, and that discrimination against women does not militate against concern for the poor precisely because this discrimination results in real poverty for women around the planet.

And it's rooted in walls that run right through the structures of the Catholic church — which need to fall.