Debate

According to Father Charles Curran,

In the middle of the 19th century, the popes condemned democracy. They claimed that freedom of conscience was a sewer into which all garbage flows. That was in a papal encyclical, those words.

It took the Catholic Church 1900 years to condemn slavery. It was only in the end of the 19th Century that the institution of slavery was condemned.

For 16 centuries, we accepted the fact that you could not take interest on a loan. And this had a strong scriptural basis. It was heavily in the Hebrew Bible. It was in the -- at least the Christian understanding of the New Testament that it said, "Lend, expecting nothing in return."

His point is not that the Church is evil, but that it can change.

Catholic Dissidents Call for Openness; John Paul Silenced Many, Critics Say By Alan Cooperman and Daniel Williams:

...dissidents are calling for a new openness and willingness to debate such topics as the ordination of women, condom use to fight HIV/AIDS and the morality of homosexuality.

Words and expressions like "openness", "debate", and being "shut out of normal discourse" are a little disengenuous, since they're really talking about changing policies. Not that I'm against it, but after all some people like it the way it is. I still don't see why they don't just start their own church.