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VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Walter Kasper issued his own call for female deacons, days after the final document of the Synod on Synodality stated the question “remains open.”

In an interview with online theology magazine Communio, Kasper opined freely on the question of the female diaconate – in an intervention that takes on special significance in light of the recently concluded Synod on Synodality.

READ: Cardinal Fernández says question of female deacons is not closed, citing Pope Francis

Kasper, notable for his successful promotion of Holy Communion for the divorced and “remarried,” made reference to the two commissions on the female diaconate that Pope Francis established.

The first commission was a 12-member body convened in August 2016 that included Phyllis Zagano, a leading advocate of “ordaining” women to the diaconate, and Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, former prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, as its president. The second, set up in 2020 and chaired by Cardinal Guiseppe Petrocchi, was reconvened as of last week.

“The fact that several commissions have now been entrusted with the question of the reintroduction of the diaconate for women, but none of them has come to a unanimous decision, shows that the question is controversial, but also open, and as an open question it is also referred to in the final document of the synod,” said Kasper.

Such a topic of female ordination “has not been decided in a binding manner by the teaching authority of the Church,” he argued, before adding:

I myself wrestled with the answer to this question for a long time, but, in the meantime, I have come to the conclusion that there are good reasons that make it theologically possible and pastorally meaningful to open the permanent diaconate to women.

According to Kasper’s suggestions, every “local church would be free to decide whether or not to make use of this opportunity” to implement having female deacons.

As noted by Kasper, the synod’s final document does indeed make reference to the question, thanks to the controversial inserts that were not present in the draft version. Paragraph 60 mentions that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open.” (258 for/97 against)

It also read that “women continue to encounter obstacles in obtaining a fuller recognition of their charisms, vocation and roles in all the various areas of the Church’s life.”

READ: Synod final text calls for continued ‘process’ with synodal ‘listening’ and dialogue

Such a scenario, the document states, “is to the detriment of serving the Church’s shared mission.”

However, in 2018, Cardinal Ladaria defended Pope John Paul II’s text Ordinatio Sacerdotalis as bearing the mark of “infallibility.” That apostolic letter contained the notable declaration from the Polish Pope that: “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

Ladaria said that, with regard to female ordination to holy orders, John Paul “formally confirmed and made explicit, so as to remove all doubt, that which the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium has long considered throughout history as belonging to the deposit of faith.”

Even from the earliest days, the Catholic Church has taught that the Sacrament of Holy Orders is threefold, being composed of the episcopate, the priesthood and the diaconate.

Revival or revolution?

Vocal advocates of female ordination have argued that women in holy orders would be a renewal of an ancient custom, citing women’s activity in the early Church. Indeed, Kasper made this argument his own when talking to Communio.

The German cardinal said that “the strict distinction between a sacrament and a sacramental did not yet exist in the first millennium; therefore, it is inappropriate to say that the ordination of women deacons was a sacramental at that time.”

He also took issue with the designation of the threefold nature of the Sacrament of Holy Orders as being “problematic,” arguing this should not be used as a justification to exclude women from the diaconate.

While many point women deaconesses in the early Church to argue for women’s ordination, respected journalist Dr. Maike Hickson has noted that “female deacons were not sacramentally ordained, were excluded from any role in the liturgy, and thus cannot be compared with a sacramentally ordained female deacon as Cardinal Schönborn and others propose.”

In 2002, the Vatican’s International Theological Commission wrote that the much misrepresented so-called “female deacons” of the early church – cited by activists today – were not in fact deacons as understood today, and were certainly not ordained to any ministry:

  • “The deaconesses mentioned in the tradition of the ancient Church – as evidenced by the rite of institution and the functions they exercised – were not purely and simply equivalent to the deacons;
  • The unity of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, in the clear distinction between the ministries of the bishop and the priests on the one hand and the diaconal ministry on the other, is strongly underlined by ecclesial tradition, especially in the teaching of the Magisterium.”

Kasper has long been an advocate of women assuming increased roles in the liturgy, especially via holy orders. Shortly after the 2019 Amazon Synod – and the call for female deacons and female ministries which it promoted – Kasper said that “I think that, in time, the doors will be opened” to women on the altar.

Kasper has also been criticized for seeing “elements of good” in same-sex relationships and for claiming that the Church cannot adequately explain her teachings with regard to homosexuality.

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