Silent majority: Catholic women struggling to get voices heard at Vatican's synod

It will be a landmark review of church teachings and women want their say: as bishops gather in Rome to review attitudes to modern family life, the Catholic Women Speak network is primed for a fierce but uphill struggle.

The Vatican needs to "stop speaking about women in order to concentrate on speaking with women", says the network, the frustrated cry of women being snubbed by a centuries-old institution run exclusively by robed men.

But will the red-hatted "princes" of the church and their pink-sashed colleagues make time to talk about letting women into the Vatican's halls of power? Of the 360 or so people taking part in the three-week review, only 17 are women, called to speak strictly about their experience as wives and mothers - and certainly not eligible to take part in the final vote on change.

"From silence to words, from subordination to responsibility, from invisibility to peace" - this is the battle cry of theological professor Cettina Militello which has been taken up by women from all walks of life in the network.

It was launched last year by Monica Jimenez de la Jara, Chile's ambassador to the Holy See, and sister Mary Melone, the first female head of a pontifical university, the Antonianum in Rome.

Their fight is described in the book , which editor Tina Beattie is planning to hand out to "each member of the synod".