(LifeSiteNews) — The heterodox Cardinal Walter Kasper called for the “women’s diaconate” in his autobiography, which is to be published in June.

“In my personal opinion, the opening of the Permanent Diaconate for Women has good theological arguments for itself and would be a pastorally sensible step,” wrote the 92-year-old in The Truth on the Trail, to be released on June 10 in Germany, kathpress reported.

He cited the equal personal dignity of men and women before God – which itself is taught by the Church – but departed from Catholic teaching in his inference that this means men and women must take on similar roles.

Kasper, who has pushed for Holy Communion for divorced and civilly “remarried” persons – a mortal sin and sacrilege – 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 “ministries” that it promoted, Kasper said that “I think that, in time, the doors will be opened” to women on the altar.

While vocal advocates of “female ordination” point to women deaconesses in the early Church, 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.”

The Vatican’s International Theological Commission in 2002 made clear that the so-called “female deacons” of the early church were not in fact deacons as understood today and were certainly not ordained to any ministry.

Former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal Gerhard Müller 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.

In his book Ministers of Christ, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski notes, “All liturgical services within the sanctuary of the church represent Christ, the supreme ‘deacon,’ and therefore, according to the perennis sensus of the Church and its uninterrupted tradition, both the higher and lower liturgical services are performed by male persons.”

“The function of subdeacon or deacon was exercised by Christ, for example, during the Last Supper when He girded Himself with a servant’s apron and washed the feet of the apostles who, during the same Supper, were constituted by Him true priests of the New Covenant,” Kwasniewski wrote.

Both clerical and lay Catholics have raised concerns that despite the Catholic Church’s clear prohibition on ordained “women deacons,” the Synod on Synodality’s call for increased female governance may signal the Church hierarchy’s intention to “ordain” women. 

Indeed, the campaign for “female deacons” has received vocal support from leading members of the synod, as evidenced by Cardinal Blase Cupich advocating for recognition of women “pastors” who are already “serving as the head of communities because they don’t have enough priests.”

After Pope Francis’ first commission to study the possibility of “women deacons” ended in deadlock, the late pontiff created a second commission in April 2020 to revisit the issue. Before their first meeting in August 2021, the commission’s secretary, Father Dupont-Fauville, told The Tablet he was unable to comment on their activity, because it was “covered by the pontifical secret.”

After the release of the Synod on Synodality’s final text, scandal-plagued Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández said “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open” despite Catholic teaching infallibly stating that the matter is closed.

Kasper was part of the infamous St. Gallen Mafia, a group of high-ranking, heterodox clerics who opposed Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s election to the papacy in 2005 and reportedly plotted to elect Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope. The group had multiple meetings in St. Gallen, Switzerland, between 1995 and 2006.