Has anyone even offered alternative reasons? It seems like I've just heard denials of a war on women but no explanation why it is so important to put barriers between women and whatever the church doesn't like them doing rather than talking to women like they are adults that can be reasoned with?
Is this because they think they can bully women into having more children? They can't even recruit enough religious as it is. Do they think rebuking religious women like they are rebellious children will up the numbers?
It's not motivated by the calculus of membership, it's motivated by the momentum of extremism.
The more the Republican party gave up on the black vote, the more voice bigotry had in the party, the more blacks fled the party, the more dominated by racial animus their agenda became. It's a positive feedback loop limited only by the need to not become so obviously extremist that they cannot win elections.
But the Papal pulpit only needs to win one key election, and he already won that one. So now, because ecumenical voices and liberal voices have been made unwelcome, they withdraw, either from the church or from the fray. And that concentrates reactionaries in the decision making seats. And the natural tendency of isolated groups, and who lives a more isolated life than a bishop, really, to echo-chamber the ideas already being aired, results in the normalization of radical beliefs.
While the RCC is losing numbers and families just aren't sending their kids off to become priests like they use to, the RCC has one powerful weapon in their arsenal.
Qui tacet consentire videtur - He who is silent appears to consent.
Many Cradle Catholics for whatever reason wish to recieve the Rite of Marriage in a Catholic ceremony in a Catholic Church. So we go along with the circus until we get hitched and then silently hate ourselves for collaborating indirectly.