Cardinal Walter Kasper, the former head of Vatican ecumenism efforts, said he now believes there are reasons to create a women’s diaconate because a synodal Church will need a more “sibling-like” culture.
“In my personal opinion, opening the permanent diaconate to women has good theological arguments in its favour and would be a sensible pastoral step,” wrote the former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in his autobiography, due to appear on 10 June.
“Women and men have the same dignity before God and must therefore be recognised with their own charisms,” the 92-year-old German cardinal wrote in Der Wahrheit auf der Spur (“On the Trail of Truth”).
“We will continue to need good bishops and priests in the future, but in a synodal Church, the era of clericalism and arbitrary decisions by bishops is over,” he continued. “The laity want and should be heard, and they can also expect accountability from the bishops and priests.”
Kasper said the drop in vocations could bring the institution back to the situation of the ancient Church. Advocates for a female diaconate often cite examples for this office in the letters of St Paul.
“The early Church was not a holy remnant that some dream of today; it was a holy beginning from which our Church has grown like a small mustard seed into a large tree,” he said.
The Rome-based cardinal, noting changes in the world-wide faith, said developments in the Global South could “bring new momentum to the Church and soon make us Europeans look old”.
Kasper had long had doubts about women deacons, especially after the Anglican Communion split over the question of women priests and bishops while he was head of the Vatican’s ecumenism office – now the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity – in 2001-10, responsible for relations with other Christian churches.
But he said he now saw the question as a “megatopic” that Rome must face. “Without conversion, prayer, and repentance, all reforms, no matter how well-intentioned, have no future,” he said.