(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Kasper has again promoted female deacons, claiming they are “theologically possible and could be helpful pastorally.”

“Personally, I believe that opening the permanent diaconate to women is theologically possible and could be helpful pastorally.” So said Cardinal Walter Kasper in a new interview with Rheinische Post.

Kasper, now aged 92, has been one of the most influential prelates in the Church of late, particularly so during the Francis pontificate. Infamously, Kasper was one of the most prominent advocates of Holy Communion for the divorced and “re-married,” so much so that the topic was dubbed the “Kasper proposal” prior to Amoris Laetitia’s publication.

“Of course,” said Kasper about female deacons, “I know that there is still no consensus on this issue. It is not for me to decide whether and when the time is ripe.”

In making his argument, Kasper sought to ensure a division between the female diaconate and a female priesthood:

As the word itself suggests, there is no path from the permanent diaconate to the presbyterate and episcopate (priesthood and bishopric, ed.). There is a fundamental difference between the diaconate and the other two orders of ministry in that the diaconate does not represent Christ as head of the Church in the same way as the other two orders. Furthermore, there is no basis for opening it to women in the tradition of the Church. So there is no need to worry that opening it to women could get out of hand.

He also waved aside the idea of a female pope, saying that it is “a question that’s beyond my imagination. Since the pope has primacy as Bishop of Rome, a positive answer would require that women have access to the episcopate, which is not the case according to what I have just said.”

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.

In recent years the question of female deacons has indeed been notably prominent, especially due to the multi-year Synod on Synodality. Paragraph 60 of the Synod’s final text mentions that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open” (258 for, 97 against).

It is this question that will be studied by Synod on Synodality Study Group 5 which will encompass the “possible access of women to the diaconate,” drawing on the October 2023 Synthesis Report and the 2016 and 2020 commissions on so-called “female deacons.”

That study group was due to issue its finding this month, but the recent papal funeral and conclave is likely to have delayed their activity. However, it was placed under the care of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), and Pope Leo has now met a number of times with the prefect and doctrinal secretary of that office, meaning that some official text might be forthcoming.

Catholic teaching on female deacons

Kasper’s latest interview rests on his principle of dividing the sacrament of Holy Orders into two parts: separating the diaconate from the priesthood and the episcopacy, allowing women access to the first but not the latter two.

However, the Catholic Church teaches that the sacrament of Holy Orders is reserved to men only and is in three degrees: bishop, priest, and deacon.

In his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II taught, “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.”

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 Commission also emphasized the threefold degree of the one sacrament, meaning that the diaconate is part of the male-only sacrament of Holy Orders:

• “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.”

In 2018, the then-current prefect of the DDF, Cardinal Ladaria Ferrer, S.J., defended the teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis as bearing the mark of “infallibility,” with John Paul II having “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.”

Ladaria’s predecessor – Cardinal Gerhard Müller – has also spoken consistently on the topic, telling this correspondent recently that the Catholic Church’s Apostolic Tradition and infallible pronouncements all defend a male-only sacrament of Holy Orders.

The female diaconate, one of Cardinal Kasper’s regular talking points, will likely remain a prominent aspect in ecclesial discussion for some time as activists seek to reject the unchanging teaching on the issue.