A prominent activist nun has said senior clergy at the Vatican are more preoccupied with power than confronting issues such as clerical sexual abuse that impact the faithful.

Sister Simone Campbell said in an interview with Religion News Service, 'The institution and the structure is frightened of change. These men worry more about the form and the institution than about real people.'

Campbell led the 'Nuns on the Bus' US election touring campaign.

She was speaking in advance of the Vatican conference today to celebrate women's contributions to peace. 

She said the Church was changing but it was 'outrageous' that it was failing to respond to the sex abuse crisis more effectively. 'Most of the guys who run this place haven't dealt with an ordinary human being who's been abused, an ordinary woman or a boy who has been abused,' she told RNS.

Meanwhile, also in Rome, Crux reported that the Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, has created a new 'consultation' of 37 women to ensure that the women's voice is listened to in his department. The women work in disciplines from Iranian theology to medicine, diplomacy and acting.

The group will meet three times a year and present proposals on issues such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, sports and human anthropology.

Ravasi told a press conference: 'These women have the mission of judging, analysing our activity, and above all, making suggestions. The dicastery is concerned with very delicate issues which, when studied by women, it becomes evident just how important the feminine perspective is.'

The group includes Muslims, Jews and Protestants as well as Catholics.

Donna Orsuto, a university professor from the United States, told Crux that the aim is for them to be involved in the work of the council, taking leadership roles.

Houshmand, an Iranian theologian, said that the women in the group are not 'feminists nor exclusivists'. She said they have a 'marvelously strong voice to do good'.

She said violence and discrimination against women is a global phenomenon.

'This happens in the Christian, Buddist, Jewish and Muslim worlds,' she told Crux. Yet 'the tears of a Christian woman or a Muslim woman have the same colour'.