On a barge on Rome's River Tiber, a stone's throw from the Vatican, Loan Rocher is "ordained" in a secret ceremony in defiance of the Catholic Church's ban on women deacons and priests. The 68-year-old Frenchwoman acknowledges her ordination is unauthorised by the Vatican, where a month-long summit on the future of the Church concludes next week. "For 2,000 years, they've been repeating the same message, that women are inferior, subaltern, invisible. So that's it, we've waited long enough," says Rocher, concluding, "I'm doing it now." IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES