German bishop appoints female equivalent of a vicar general in his diocese

(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Georg Bätzing said his diocese in Germany now has the female equivalent of a vicar general.

The heterodox Limburg bishop, known for supporting the heretical proposals of the German Synodal Way, said in a Sunday interview that he has sought to give women “every opportunity to participate in design, advice and management” of the Church.

“So there is now a woman in a function that corresponds to that of the vicar general,” Bätzing said. In the Diocese of Limburg, Hildegard Wustmans currently holds this novel position of “Episcopal Delegate” or “Episcopal Commissioner,” serving alongside Vicar General Wolfgang Pax as part of a “co-equal leadership team” for the diocesan administration.

The Vicar General is traditionally a cleric who acts as a bishop’s deputy, exercising administrative authority over the diocese, second in rank to the bishop. 

According to the Code of Canon Law, the Vicar General must be a priest who is at least 30 years old, thus excluding the possibility that a woman may hold the position (Canon 478 §1).

Bätzing suggested that such administrative positions act as a kind of restitution to women, considering that they are unable to be ordained — as if that fact were an undesirable deprivation.

“This changes us and enriches us,” the bishop said regarding his diocese’s new position. His plea: “As long as sacramental consecration is not possible for women, we should consistently develop these possibilities.”

While the new “Episcopal Delegate” position is not technically impermissible, it is questionable, practically speaking, given that the Vicar General exercises administration over priests and is arguably best served by experience as a priest. It also contradicts the spirit of the law of the Church, according to which formal authority in the Church is exercised by men, after the pattern of Christ and His apostles.

Bätzing served as head of the German Bishops’ Conference from 2020 until 2026, and in 2022 he declared that Catholic Church teaching on the role of women “must be changed.” He has voted in favor of a document of the Synodal Way that calls for the “blessing” of homosexual unions as well as in favor of a text that calls for the sacramental ordination of “female deacons.”

Theologian and liturgical scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has explained in his book Ministers of Christ that not only women priests but women deacons are impossible because “all liturgical services within the sanctuary of the church represent Christ, the supreme ‘deacon.’”

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has affirmed that the impossibility of women receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders in each of the three degrees, including the diaconate, is a “dogma” of the faith of the Catholic Church.