Cardinal Kasper makes case for female deacons in new book

Cardinal Walter Kasper, former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, wrote in his autobiography, due to be published on June 10, that a synodal Church will need more “sibling-like” culture.

Cardinal Kasper previously had doubts about women deacons, especially after the Anglican Communion split over the question of women priests and bishops.

But in Der Wahrheit auf der Spur (On the Trail of Truth), Cardinal Kasper wrote: “In my personal opinion, opening the permanent diaconate to women has good theological arguments in its favour and would be a sensible pastoral step.

“Women and men have the same dignity before God and must therefore be recognised with their own charisms,” the 92-year-old German cardinal wrote.

“We will continue to need good bishops and priests in the future, but in a synodal Church, the era of clericalism and arbitrary decisions by bishops is over,” he continued. “The laity want and should be heard, and they can also expect accountability from the bishops and priests.”

Cardinal Kasper said the position of women in the Catholic Church has now “become a mega issue” that Rome must face. Some progress has been made in recent decades, but much remains to be done, he said.

Pope Francis set up two commissions – in 2016 and in 2020 – to consider whether women could serve as deacons by studying if that was the case in the early centuries of the Church, Al Jazeera reported. The report from the first group was never released to the public as the commission was not able to agree on the issue, according to Francis, while the second never concluded its work.

In 2024, during an interview with US broadcaster CBS, Pope Francis said “no” to the ordination of women deacons. But a few months later, he signed off on the final document of a synod, saying the issue should remain an “open” question.

In a report to the Synod on Synodality last year, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that his dicastery, at this point, “judges that there is still no room for a positive decision by the magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate, understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders”.

But, he wrote, the dicastery thinks a “particularly interesting” way forward would be “to analyse in-depth the lives of some women who – in both the early and recent history of the Church – have exercised genuine authority and power in support of the Church’s mission.”

Their “authority or power was not tied to sacramental consecration, as would be in the case, at least today, with diaconal ordination”, the report stated. “Yet, in some cases, one can perceive that it was an ‘exercise’ of power and authority that was of great value and was fruitful for the vitality of the people of God.”

FULL STORY

Women deacons would be ‘sensible’ for synodal Church, says Kasper (By Tom Heneghan/The Tablet)

Cardinal Kasper: Women’s diaconate would make sense (Irish Catholic/KNA)

Women in the Catholic Church: Which way will the next pope go? (Al Jazeera)

Vatican doctrinal chief tells synod it’s not time for women deacons (USCCB/CNS)