While insisting women cannot be ordained priests, Pope Benedict XVI said it is right to discuss how women can be more involved in church decision-making.

Meeting March 2 with the priests of the Diocese of Rome, Pope Benedict spent two hours listening to their concerns and responding to the questions posed by 15 of them.

The following day, the Vatican released a summary of the priests' questions and a transcript of the pope's remarks covering women in the church, youth, family life and a variety of other topics.

Father Marco Valentini asked the pope why the church does not recognize that women's experience, wisdom and points of view would complement those of the men in decision-making positions.

Pope Benedict said, "Everyone certainly has had this experience" that Father Valentini described of being assisted by women in growing in the faith.

"The church owes a great debt of thanks to women," the pope said.

Women not only have exercised a charismatic function in the church, being prompted by the Holy Spirit to found religious orders, expand charitable projects and develop new forms of piety, he said; they have had "a real and profound participation in the governance of the church."

"How could one imagine the governance of the church without this contribution, which sometimes has been quite visible, like when St. Hildegard criticized the bishops or when St. Brigid and St. Catherine of Siena admonished and obtained the return of the popes to Rome" from Avignon, France, the pope said.

The contribution of women, he said, "always has been a determining factor without which the church could not live."

Pope Benedict said priestly ministry is reserved to men, but "it is right to ask" if it would not be possible "to offer more space, more positions of responsibility to women."

In responding to the questions, the pope frequently admitted he did not understand some of the words the Rome priests used or that he did not have all the answers.

Dealing with several subjects, the pope emphasized the importance of individuals recognizing they have been created by God, entering into a relationship with God and sharing that relationship with others.

He quoted the Old Testament reading (Deuteronomy 30: 15-20) used March 2 at Mass: "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life."

The decline of Christianity in the West, he said, too often is presented falsely as a choice for life.

"It has been said --- I'm thinking of Nietzsche, but also many others --- that Christianity is a choice against life. With the cross, with all the commandments, with every 'no' it tells us, it closes the door to life," he said.

But true Christian faith teaches people that the abundance of life comes not from hoarding it, but from giving it, he said.

"Human life is a relationship," he said. "And the basic relationship is with the Creator, otherwise all relationships are fragile. A world emptied of God, a world that has forgotten God, loses life and falls into a culture of death."

Pope Benedict said too many people in the West are afraid to have children because they think a child will diminish their lives.

The pope said he personally wanted to thank Catholic mothers "because they have given life, because they want to help this life grow" and because they introduce their children to "friendship with Jesus."

Responding to a question about the difficulties young people face today, the pope said the basic problem is a "great solitude."

"Everyone lives in his own world," he said. "They are islands of thought and feelings; they never come together."

Without a strong family life and strong faith, the pope said, people forget that they are all children of God and that the life they are called to live is a life in community.

"Why this solitude in a society that otherwise appears as a society of the masses?" he asked. "Why this lack of understanding in a society in which everyone seeks to understand, where communication is everything and where the transparency of everything to everyone is the supreme law?"

Pope Benedict said the answer lies in the fact that too many people give value only to what is new and modern, and forget what endures and what unites all people: having been created by God, loved by God and saved by his Son.

Whether dealing with the problems of youth and family life or looking at the church, its liturgy and its relationship to the world, he said, people must remember that "in a moment of renewal and change, the element of the permanent becomes more important."

The church does not ignore or condemn all that is new, the pope said, but it knows it has a treasure of faith, piety and liturgy that have helped people for centuries and can still help them.

Turning to the liturgy, the pope said he was "a bit upset" when the Second Vatican Council changed the liturgical readings for Lent, adopting the reading he had just cited about choosing life or death.

"Today I see that these readings are very beautiful and express the program of Lent: to choose life, that is to renew one's baptismal 'yes,' which is to choose life," he said.

"We must accept the new, but also love continuity and see the council from the viewpoint of continuity," he said.

---CNS