I felt hurt, humiliated, angry. She only put the chalice down after having scrutinised it carefully. Women were, indeed, from at least the 5 th century considered second-rate, sinful and ritually unclean, yes unclean on account of menstruation. A Church ordinance in France forbidding women to touch sacred objects was deviously published under the name of Pope Soter and handed on as part of the so-called False Decretals. Through touching her blood fruits fail to get ripe.
Mustard degenerates, grass dries up and trees lose their fruit before time.
Iron gets rusted and the air becomes dark. When dogs eat it, they acquire rabies. That is why women are kept away from the altar. Medieval theologians considered the prohibition to touch sacred objects a major argument to exclude women from the priesthood. The prohibition stayed in force until the new code of canon law promulgated in 1983.