Sister Theresa Kane has taken strong stances before on the Catholic Church’s treatment of women.

She’s still remembered by some generations of Catholics for making international news in 1979, when, during Pope John Paul II’s first visit to the United States as pontiff, she boldly suggested that women be considered for priestly ordination.

More than three decades later, Kane showed up in Snyder Saturday to continue that discussion and start a few others.

Now an associate professor of history at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, Kane said she still frequently gets asked whether she sees the Vatican someday opening up the priesthood to women.

“It’s a quest. It’s not whether I see it. I know it’s there,” said Kane, who was president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious when she made her controversial remarks to the pope. “We may see excommunications and other things a few years before we have women ordained. It’s already happening.”

But Kane’s 90-minute talk Saturday afternoon in Daemen College’s Schenk Hall auditorium largely focused on another hot-button issue in the church these days — the Vatican’s investigation into American nuns. About 100 people, most of them women religious, attended the talk.

“There have been other sisters who have been prophetic, but she’s the one most people know because she spoke out to the pope,” said Lucille Gervais, a member of Call to Action, the group that sponsored Kane’s visit. “Most people remember that because it was unprecedented.”

During her talk, Kane criticized the church for a monarchical governance structure and an imperialistic and patriarchal approach to the world — which she described as “expressions of idolatry.”

“Wherever that’s present, God is not,” she said.

The church’s current governance system is “not a model of a gospel organization,” she added.

The Vatican inquiry into communities of nuns—officially known as the apostolic visitation of institutes of women religious — entered its third phase in April with on-site visits to a representative sample of congregations.

The Vatican scrutiny has provoked plenty of skepticism and puzzlement among nuns, who are unsure what it will mean for the future of religious life.

Some have expressed strong concerns that it’s a veiled effort to turn back the clock on religious life, which has evolved dramatically over the past several decades as nuns moved primarily from roles as habited teachers and nurses into broader ministries where they wear regular clothing.

But the inquiry also has galvanized many Catholics who have deep respect for the contributions of the nation’s women religious.

“The nuns are still our heroes,” said Gervais.

Despite her criticism of the inquiry, Kane expressed hope of a silver lining in it.

“I have a number of Catholic friends who say they are scandalized by what they are doing to sisters,” said Kane. “The only thing I’ve seen so far is it’s been great publicity for the sisters.”

Still, the investigation is “truly a scandal to gender equality,” she said, and it shows no respect for women.

Some congregations of women religious declined to provide any answers to a questionnaire sent out last year as part of the visitation’s second phase. Others consulted canon lawyers and answered questions only partially.

But any sisters selected to be interviewed by visitation personnel may have no choice in the matter, said Kane.

“I believe the people who are coming in are coming in as judge, jury and prosecutor,” she said. “We won’t know what these individual [visitors] found out or were thinking . . . It’s very one-sided.”

The Vatican is simultaneously conducting a “doctrinal assessment” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the umbrella group of about 1,500 nuns that Kane headed more than 30 years ago.

The assessment was ordered in part to determine whether the conference was promoting the church’s official teaching on controversial issues such as maintaining an all-male priesthood.