He returns a good 20 written pages to the questions of the Catholic News Agency (KNA). At the very end of his church career, which he had never aspired to, the "Amazon Bishop", one of Latin America's best-known bishops, even became the Pope's ghostwriter on environmental issues and priestly celibacy.
Kräutler delivered with all his might - but his steep pass ended up out of bounds. Today he is 85 years old.
Pope Francis provokes "an insane hope", Kräutler said in a recent interview. At the 2019 Amazon Synod, many bishops expressly called for proven men and women from remote church communities to be ordained as priests or priestesses.
"And Pope Francis did not accept it," said Kräutler - "although he had previously told us bishops: Make bold proposals to me". This frustrated and disappointed him.
At the synod, 80 per cent of the bishops had voted in favour of viri probati and the diaconate for women, the bishop explained. It is inconceivable that Francis did not mention this at all in his final document of the synod.
The bishop was pessimistic about the synodal process of the universal church. "Nothing will come of it", he said - "nothing was achieved but expenses". The pressing reform issues would not be discussed there at all.
Life as an "itinerant bishop"
From his reality as an "itinerant bishop" in remote areas, the clergyman reported that his arrival was always a celebration. "I was kissed by the whole village. And I was always asked the question: Where is your wife?"
As a young bishop, he still said that he was not married.
"The head of the village looked at me funny. He just couldn't understand it. Because the concept of celibacy doesn't fit into the reality of their lives," says the Austrian-born bishop. He later said "that my wife is far, far away".
The villagers regretted this loneliness - "but at least there were no more strange reactions".
Nevertheless, Kräutler was also confident about the future and predicted: "Married priests will come first, then the diaconate for women. Women priests will be the next stage."
When Pope Francis says that women should not be ordained as priests in order to protect them from clericalism, this is "a joke", said Kräutler: "The unordained men in the Amazon region are much more clerical than the women who lead parishes." He knows "no woman who lives clericalism - none".
"We need women - also in ministries," emphasised Kräutler, and: "It cannot be that ancient men design a theology of women."
A next pope could perhaps manage to bring back a "springtime for the Church", as he experienced as a young man at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), said the 84-year-old.
In any case, a successor and the Church could not go back on the approaches that Francis had initiated.
Kräutler, born on 12 July 1939 in Koblach, Vorarlberg, initially went to Amazonia as a missionary in 1965. From 1981 to 2015, he headed the huge Amazonian diocese of Xingu.
As a bishop, he campaigned for the rights of indigenous people, small farmers and landless people as well as for the protection of the rainforest. He repeatedly denounced political and social grievances in public.
In 1983, Kräutler became internationally known when he was arrested and interrogated during a solidarity action with labourers.
In 1987, he successfully campaigned for the rights of indigenous peoples to be enshrined in Brazil's Constituent Assembly.
Shortly afterwards, he was seriously injured in a mysterious car accident. In 2010, he was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize for his commitment. He also co-authored Pope Francis' environmental encyclical "Laudato si" (2015).
A sought-after expert
Kräutler' s commitment repeatedly brought him into the sights of business bosses and land grabbers. He has faced slander, intimidation and even death threats; he is regularly under police protection.
Several of Kräutler's colleagues have been murdered, including the US nun and environmental activist Dorothy Stang in 2005.
Today, the retired bishop is a sought-after expert on human rights, environmental protection and indigenous rights in Brazil.
He tirelessly draws attention to the consequences of unscrupulous deforestation and calls on the world public to do something about it. In terms of church policy, he also sees the blatant shortage of priests and equal rights for women as a central "challenge for the global church".
Despite all the problems, Kräutler emphasises to the KNA that he has not regretted a single moment in the Amazon region: "I am one of those people who - as Pope Francis says - live in the Amazon, suffer with it and love it passionately."