Speaking to the German catholic journal Communio, Kasper noted that after considerable thought, he believes it "theologically possible and pastorally sensible" for women to be admitted to the permanent diaconate.

"Each local church would be free to decide whether it wants to make use of this possibility or not" he added, referring to national bishops' conferences.

According to Kasper, the argument favouring ordaining women as deacons is that the Western and Eastern churches were familiar with this ministry in the early centuries.

"The fact that - as far as I know - the ordination forms for deacons and deaconesses were the same, also speaks against this" Kasper added.

Question "remains open"

Kasper's statement comes as the Catholic Church faces renewed debates over the role of women, particularly following the recently concluded Synod on Synodality.

Cardinal Kasper's position has surprised some observers, as he has recently adopted a more conservative stance. He is particularly critical of Germany's Synodal Path, a local reform process seeking structural and doctrinal changes within the Church.

The synod did not make a definitive decision on women deacons but acknowledged that the question "remains open". Many had expected Pope Francis and the bishops to explore the topic more thoroughly, but a binding stance was not reached.

Massimo Faggioli, a theologian at Villanova University, suggested that Kasper's comments reflect a growing realisation within the Church that the role of women in ministry is a central issue for its future.

Open for discussion

Meanwhile, Cardinal Victor Fernández, head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, announced that the question of women deacons will undergo more intensive study.

Speaking to synod members, Fernández clarified that, while Pope Francis believes the topic is not yet "mature", it remains open for discussion.

The cardinal noted that many women seek to serve and lead in the Church according to their charisms rather than through ordination, suggesting that a nuanced approach to women's roles could strengthen community leadership.

Sources

Religion News Service

English Katholisch

Catholic News Agency

CathNews New Zealand

One of the most urgent tasks of bishops and priests is to "proclaim the Gospel in accordance with the requirements of the time," he said in a conversation with the Viennese theologian Jan-Heiner Tück on the online portal "communio.de" on the feast of Christ Ascension.

"Today, as in apostolic times, we should assign many other leadership tasks to deacons or qualified laypeople, women and men," Kasper added. He referred to the biblical book of Acts, which also deals with the election of deacons in the early Christian community.

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Speaking at a lecture in Salzburg, Kasper highlighted the need for adaptation amidst ongoing synodal changes and decentralisation within the Church.

He suggested revitalising the early Church tradition of provincial and plenary councils to accommodate cultural diversity better.

Kasper proposed a new function for cardinals.

He envisioned them serving as presidents of plenary councils in their respective regions, representing the churches within those areas.

This proposal would establish a bicameral system comprising the Synod of Bishops and the Council of Cardinals.

Kasper presented these ideas during the "Benedictines as Cardinals" symposium at St Peter's Archabbey in Salzburg.

Cardinals became curia officials

During his lecture "Cardinals in the Service of the Church and the Papacy", Kasper traced the evolution of the cardinalate. He noted its fluctuating responsibilities and increasing politicisation over time.

Kasper noted that in the late Middle Ages, the cardinals were "increasingly drawn into the decline and decadence of Rome".

Then, in modern times, cardinals increasingly became curia officials - in parallel to the prince-bishops who continued to exist.

Kasper explained that Pope John XXIII through the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) rediscovered an earlier ecclesiastical leadership function that had been sidelined.

According to Kasper, it is necessary to return to the origins of the College of Cardinals. That is evangelisation and celebrating the Eucharist in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

"Both communion in the Word and communion in the sacrament were given as a guiding principle by the Second Vatican Council in its communion ecclesiology.

"We hope to keep Francis for a few more years; his successors will conclude his reforms" remarked Cardinal Kasper, underscoring the urgency of the proposed reforms.

Sources

Katholisch

Il Messaggero

CathNews New Zealand

Kasper, who is the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity's President Emeritus, points to the Second Vatican Council's path in synodal fellowship.

The Church would have a future only if it continued on that path - a path that the German synodal path "had failed to take," he says.

This won't mean acting like bookkeepers, but "in creative loyalty and synodal fellowship by listening to God's Word and to one another together.

"In my and other people's opinion, the German ‘synodal' gives the impression that it can and feels it has to discover a new Church and must push through its own agenda."

As the German way forward has "unfortunately failed", he says he puts all the more hope in the World Synodal Process Pope Francis has launched.

The Catholic Church's future must concentrate on the Gospel Message and the "wounds of the world", not just itself, he says.

The Council should not be seen as a break with tradition but as a "new departure to a more alive and comprehensive understanding of tradition and catholicity".

To do justice to the Council as a whole, it is necessary to go deeply into the Council's texts and editorial history. This is a theologically challenging and demanding undertaking that is still ongoing, Kasper notes.

At the same time, the Council and its documents had meanwhile become a part of church history, he says.

Francis belongs to a post-Council generation who regard the decisions and documents as facts from which it is necessary to think further.

"And that raises the question of the yet undetected future potentials in the Council texts," Kasper points out.

The question of the Church's relationship to the world must be re-examined, he says.

The corresponding Council document "Gaudium et spes" was determined by an "optimistic outlook" of the time, Kasper recalls.

Since then, secularisation and the priestly sexual abuse crisis have led to a massive loss of trust in the Church. They have also made the "crisis of faith in God" more visible. That was something unforeseen at the time of the Council, Kasper says.

In the Western World today, atheism and widespread indifference to the question of God are common.

This means renewing church structures is "irrelevant for the majority of people and is only of interest for church employees", Kasper says.

It also means regarding the question of God, post-conciliar theology must go "deeper than the Council was able to" and look into the "metaphysical homelessness of modern human beings."

The ongoing debates on church reform would benefit from another look at what the Church constitution Lumen Gentium said on the common priesthood of all the faithful, Kasper says.

The Council highlighted the co-responsibility of the laity, but that did not mean that there was "rivalry or opposition" between lay Catholics and priests and bishops, he stresses.

>Source

• The Tablet

He agrees reforms are necessary but says the Church should not become "a mass that can be kneaded and shaped to suit the situation".

The proposal to create a permanent Synodal Council to govern the Catholic Church in Germany is "not a renewal, but an outrageous innovation," he says.

It would mean bishops could "de facto no longer exercise the task and authority vested in them if they voluntarily renounce it in an act of self-obligation and declare that they will follow the decisions of the synod or the future Synodal Council.

"Ultimately, such a self-obligation would be tantamount to a collective resignation by the bishops."

The Synodal Way's aim is to change the bishop's ministry as the "fundamental pillar of the old Church," he says.

"Whoever saws away at this pillar will break the neck of the Church."

To avoid this, Kasper says the bishops must heed the objections raised by a growing number of bishops around the world.

In February, a strongly-worded letter from the president of Poland's Catholic bishops' conference raised serious concerns.

In March, an open letter from the Nordic bishops expressed alarm at the German process.

In April, more than 100 cardinals and bishops from around the world released a "fraternal open letter" to Germany's bishops. They warned that sweeping changes to Church teaching advocated by the process may lead to schism.

Reiterating the synod's role, Kasper says any Synodal Way reform proposals must hear what the Holy Spirit has to say to the Church today about "corrections we need to make and the direction we should take.

"There can be no ideologically predetermined answers to these questions that are imposed by majority votes."

It was "the original sin of the Synodal Way" that it did not base itself on the pope's letter to the Church in Germany.

Francis had proposed a synod where people were to be guided by the Gospel and the basic mission of evangelisation.

However, the German process, initiated by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, "took its own path with partly different criteria".

German bishops' conference president, Bishop Georg Bätzing, has repeatedly rejected all concerns. He made it clear he was disappointed in the pope in May this year.

Earlier this month Francis reiterated that he told Bätzing that Germany already has "a very good Evangelical Church" and that "we don't need two.

"The problem arises when the Synodal Way comes from the intellectual, theological elites and is much influenced by external pressures."

Bätzing, who is president of the Synodal Way, is also a signatory to the "Frankfurt Declaration". This petition demands German bishops should declare their commitment to implementing resolutions passed by the process.

Kasper decried this push for "commitment" saying it was "a trick and, moreover, a lazy trick."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• America Magazine

Cardinal Walter Kasper the former head of the Vatican's department for Christian unity said in a June 8 interview with the Passauer Bistumsblatt that he hoped the prayers of faithful Catholics could serve as a corrective.

The 88-year-old German cardinal said: "I have not yet given up hope that the prayers of many faithful Catholics will help to steer the Synodal Way in Germany on Catholic tracks."

"It is neither a synod nor a mere dialogue process," said the cardinal. "It goes beyond my imagination that demands such as the abolition of celibacy and the ordination of women to the priesthood could end up with a two-thirds majority in the bishops' conference or that they could reach a consensus in the universal Church."

The Synodal Way is a multi-year process bringing together bishops and laypeople to discuss four main topics: the way power is exercised in the Church; sexual morality; the priesthood; and the role of women.

The German bishops initially said that the process would end with a series of "binding" votes. This has raised concerns at the Vatican that the resolutions might challenge the Church's teaching and discipline.

Kasper told the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Passau that the Synodal Way's organizers should have paid greater attention to Pope Francis' 2019 letter to the German Church.

In the letter, the pope warned German Catholics not to succumb to a particular "temptation."

He wrote: "At the basis of this temptation, there is the belief that the best response to the many problems and shortcomings that exist is to reorganize things, change them and ‘put them back together' to bring order and make ecclesial life easier by adapting it to the current logic or that of a particular group."

Kasper asked: "Why did the Synodal Way not take Pope Francis' letter more seriously and, as befits a synod, consider the critical questions in the light of the Gospel?"

The theologian, who served as bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart from 1989 to 1999, said that renewal could only come from an inner growth of faith, hope, and love.

Commenting on the Vatican's recent invitation to all Catholic dioceses to take part in the forthcoming synod on synodality, Kasper emphasized that one could "not reinvent the Church," but rather contribute to renewing it in the Holy Spirit.

He said: "Synods are not a parliament, not a ‘paper factory' that draws up long papers that hardly anyone reads afterwards, nor a church regiment that says where to go."

"Synods are gatherings in which, in crisis situations, the bishop, his presbyterate, and the faithful face the signs of the times together, look to the Gospel, and listen to what the Holy Spirit says to the congregations in prayer and in exchange with one another."

Sources

Catholic News Agency

Pillar Catholic

The bishops' conference launched a two-year "synodal procedure" for church reform last weekend, on the first Sunday of Advent.

Working together with the lay Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), special synodal candles were lit before Mass in all 27 German cathedrals and the four co-cathedrals.

Conference president Cardinal Reinhard Marx and ZdK vice-president of the ZdK, Karin Kortmann, lit the synodal candle together in Munich Cathedral during Mass.

Marx's homily stressed the importance of listening to one another and reaching consensus, despite differences of opinion.

"After the ghastly experience of discovering that clerical sexual abuse occurred in the Church, it is now crucial to examine systemic dangers like bad governance".

"In order once again to become credible witnesses of joy and hope, we will have to remove certain obstacles."

In a video message after Mass, Marx and ZdK president Thomas Sternberg said: "Credibility is an absolute must and we want to regain it through self-critical discussion."

The next two years will see the synodal procedure focusing on resolving two specific systemic problems in particular.

These problems have resulted in the Church fostering abuse and standing in the way of credibly proclaiming the Gospel message.

In a combined letter to the German Faithful weekend, Cardinal Marx and Sternberg said it was time to admit "self-critically" that the Gospel message had been "obscured and even terribly damaged", particularly by the clerical sexual abuse of minors.

"We must take the consequences and make sure the Church is a safe place," they said.

Four days before the synodal procedure was officially launched, a group of diocesan press spokesmen from 12 dioceses called on the media's critical cooperation.

"Particularly as far as scandals, crises and conflicts are concerned, the only thing that helps is as much transparency as possible.

"We would be grateful if the media were to accompany this crucial debate on the future of the Catholic Church in Germany," they said.

Several bishops have spoken out about their hopes and fears regarding the procedure in sermons and interviews.

Among these was Cardinal Walter Kasper, emeritus President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.

He said he hoped the participants in the four synodal procedure forums on "power and checks and balances", "sexual morality", "the priestly lifestyle" and "women's place in the Church" would "earnestly listen to one another and not just exchange maximum demands, otherwise the whole project will go wrong".

He himself was still "somewhat sceptical", he said.

In Bishop Heiner Wilmer's opinion, the discussions won't be easy and the German Church will be a different Church afterwards.

"It will certainly be more participatory and more feminine," he said.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic World Report

Kasper, who is considered one of Francis's close theological advisers, says such a change could be made during this year's Synod of Bishops on the Amazon set for this October, if the prelates were to ask Francis about it.

The ordination of women, even to the diaconate, is out of the question, however.

Kasper says this is because it would undermine a "millennia-old tradition".

At the same time, Kasper notes, the Catholic Church would "collapse" without women.

"If the bishops agreed through mutual consent to ordained married men - those called viri probati - it's my judgement that the pope would accept it," he says.

"Celibacy isn't a dogma, it's not an unalterable practice."

Kasper says he would prefer to see celibacy continuing to be an "obligatory way of life with a commitment to the cause of Jesus Christ".

However, he points out, "this doesn't exclude that a married man can carry a priestly service in special situations".

Kasper's views seem at odds with those of Francis, who in January addressed the issue of possibly ordaining married men, during the in-flight press conference on the way back to Rome from Panama.

"I would rather give my life than to change the law on celibacy," Francis said at the time.

"I'm not in agreement with allowing optional celibacy. No," he said.

He added, however, that he believes theologians should study the possibility of "older married men" being ordained, in "far, faraway places," such as the islands in the Pacific.

Even then, he said, they should be ordained only to celebrate Mass, hear confessions and anoint the sick.

At the time, Francis also said the question of married priests is a matter to be "prayed on" and discussed by theologians, and is one he personally hasn't meditated on enough.

"It's not for me to decide. My decision is, optional celibacy before the diaconate, no," referring to the fact that future priests typically are first ordained as deacons.

"I will not do this. I don't feel like standing in front of God with this decision," Francis said.

Source

• Crux
• Image: Crux Now

German Cardinal, Walter Kasper, says Amoris laetitia allows for a "changed pastoral practice".

He also says "We must make Amoris laetitia an awakening of family pastoral ministry. Marriage and family must be the central theme in pastoral care because the family is the way of the Church."

Kasper is the president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity

"There is leeway in ... the dogmatic principles' ...," he says

His views are recorded in the November 2016 edition of Stimmen der Zeit, a monthly journal on Christian culture.

In the Stimmen article Kasper considers Pope Francis's "apostolic exhortation" about marriage and the sacraments earlier this year, and the range of interpretations that may be given to them.

Kasper says American Cardinal Raymond Burke's denial that Amoris laetitia is magisterially binding is wrong. He says this "formally contradicts the character of an apostolic exhortation as well as its content."

He is also concerned that "alleged anxiety" about Amoris laetitia is coming from a group "which has alienated itself from a sense of faith and the life of the people of God."

kasper himself sees Amoris laetitia as having "a new, fresh and honestly liberating tone."

"Spiritual discernment demands spiritual competence," he said.

"It is a gift of the Holy Spirit as well as a fruit of spiritual experience and of learning from the great masters of the spiritual life. This matter must be strongly accounted for in the formation and continuing education of clerics and pastoral ministers going forward."

"We must make Amoris laetitia an awakening of family pastoral ministry," he said. "Marriage and family must be the central theme in pastoral care because the family is the way of the Church."

Source

• Crux
• Image: Church Citizens' Voice

In a lecture in Washington, D.C. last week, Cardinal Walter Kasper said Francis "cannot be categorised, much less appropriated, by any specific [theological] school".

"He's not an academic theologian in the professional sense, but a man of encounter and practice," the cardinal said.

For Pope Francis, "reality has primacy over ideas", Cardinal Kasper explained.

And with a focus on the Gospel, he "is intent on overcoming the absence of joy in the Church and the modern world".

This became evident from the earliest days of his pontificate, and ordinary people have warmed to it, the German theologian said.

But, "as one would expect", he said, "there are of course the critical voices who say, 'This pope does not please us because he pleases too much'."

Rather, Pope Francis "wants to initiate a new beginning for the Church", Cardinal Kasper said, but not by destroying tradition.

Rather, "Pope Francis stands in a great tradition, reaching back to the earliest beginnings".

"He does not represent a liberal position, but a radical position, understood in the original sense of the word as going back to the roots, the radix."

By reaching back through time, he is, in fact, "constructing a bridge to the future".

At the centre of Pope Francis' vision stands the concept of mercy, Cardinal Kasper said - "God's mercy".

"Mercy has become the theme of his pontificate," he said.

"Nevertheless, for some, the Pope's talk of mercy has become uncomfortable," Cardinal Kasper said.

"They sense danger lurking behind it."

But "when correctly understood, mercy is not a yielding pastoral weakness"; it is "revealed truth".

"It does not abolish justice, but outdoes it."

Pope Francis' style is not one of "benevolent popularism," Cardinal Kasper said. "His pastoral style is based on a whole theology."

He wants the participation of the People of God in the life of the Church, the cardinal explained.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Telegraph

Speaking in Austria during the second week of the recent synod on the family, Cardinal Walter Kasper said Francis is a "gift of God".

The Pope's theology and his vision for the Church are centred on the Gospel mandate, the good tidings of a merciful God, and the concept of the People of God, which Vatican II had underlined, Cardinal Kasper said.

Francis outlined much of this in his apostolic letter, Evangelii Gaudium, which was, so to speak, the blueprint of his pontificate.

He wanted "the People of God, every single one them, to participate in the Church", Cardinal Kasper said.

He also wants the Church to be a "listening church which has an open ear to the People of God", the cardinal added.

In the Pope's eyes, the Gospel message is also the basis for the "correct understanding of the magisterium", Cardinal Kasper noted.

Therefore, Church teaching and the Gospel mandate must not be played against one another.

The reform programme that Pope Francis has prescribed for the Church is long-term, Cardinal Kasper said, "a programme for a century or more".

This is because it concerns all the dimensions of being a church, "right up to every individual Christian's basic attitude".

Francis' road map for the future of the Church will, therefore, far exceed his pontificate, Cardinal Kasper said.

But the Pope's success will depend on whether it will be possible to maintain his spirit of optimism and a new start in future pontificates.

The cardinal also explained how a special Argentine variation of liberation theology based on "the theology of the people", with a particular sensitivity for regional piety and characterised by the concept of reconciliation, had a formative influence on Francis.

But this has nothing to do with the type of class-war liberation theology that drew the ire of Vatican authorities, the cardinal noted.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Blaze

In an interview with Zenit on October 15, after the evening working groups' discussions at the synod on the family, Cardinal Kasper said homosexuality is a taboo subject in Africa.

"Africa is totally different from the West. Also Asian and Muslim countries, they're very different, especially about gays," he said.

"You can't speak about this with Africans and people of Muslim countries. It's not possible. It's a taboo.

"For us, we say we ought not to discriminate, we don't want to discriminate in certain respects."

"I think in the end there must be a general line in the Church, general criteria, but then the questions of Africa, we cannot solve," Cardinal Kasper added.

"There must be space also for the local bishops' conferences to solve their problems, but I'd say with Africa it's impossible [for us to solve].

"But they should not tell us too much what we have to do."

Cardinal Kasper also said the great majority of people in Germany, Great Britain and most other places want an "opening" from the Church on the issue of divorce and remarriage.

The cardinal has proposed that some divorced and civilly remarried Catholics be able to receive Communion after a period of penitence.

"The Pope also told me that [such problems exist] also in his family, and he has looked at the laity and seen the great majority are for a reasonable, responsible opening," Cardinal Kasper said to Zenit.

The cardinal said his impression was that "a growing majority" of synod members wanted such an "opening", but there had been no vote on it.

Before the synod, other senior cardinals criticised Cardinal Kasper's proposal.

Sources

• Zenit
• Image: John Thavis

In an interview with America Magazine and Argentina's La Nacion, Cardinal Kasper said some cardinals and bishops fear a domino-like collapse in the Church's moral structure.

"That's their fear. This is all linked to ideology, an ideological understanding of the Gospel that the Gospel is like a penal code," Cardinal Kasper said.

But citing a reference to St Thomas Aquinas by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium, the cardinal said "the Gospel is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is in the soul of faithful and becomes operating in love".

"It is a living reality in the Church and we have to walk with the whole people of God and see what the needs of the people are.

"Then we have to make a discernment in the light of the Gospel, which is not a code of doctrines and commandments," Cardinal Kasper said.

At a consistory of cardinals earlier this year, Cardinal Kasper suggested, in limited cases, divorced and civilly remarried Catholics could be admitted to Communion following a period of penance.

This has been opposed by several cardinals and bishops in books published prior to the synod.

In the interview, Cardinal Kasper said "we cannot simply take one phrase of the Gospel of Jesus and from that deduce everything".

"You need a hermeneutic to see the whole of the Gospel and of Jesus' message and then differentiate between what is doctrine and what is discipline.

"Discipline can change," he said.

Issues of marriage and family "cannot be decided only from above, from the Church hierarchy, and especially you cannot just quote old texts of the last century, you have to look at the situation today, and then you make a discernment of the spirits and come to concrete results".

"I think this is the approach of Pope Francis, whereas many others start from doctrine and then use a mere deductive method."

The dual synod process, the questionnaire and the open debate on the issue of Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried show a "dialogical" Church in line with that envisaged by St John XXIII and Pope Paul VI, he added.

Cardinal Kasper said the 12 months between this synod and the 2015 one will be crucial, as bishops "will have time to speak to their people".

Source

• America
• Image: The Telegraph

The German cardinal told the Italian daily Il Mattino that some of his fellow cardinals ". . . claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops".

"They want to crystallise the truth in certain formulas . . . the formulas of tradition."

At a consistory of cardinals earlier this year, Cardinal Kasper suggested, in limited cases, divorced and civilly remarried Catholics could be admitted to Communion following a period of penance.

He spoke at the Pope's invitation.

Pope Francis, who has expressed admiration for Cardinal Kasper's writings on mercy, has also appointed him as one of the fathers at next month's synod on the family.

Several cardinals opposed to Cardinal Kasper's suggestion have produced books defending the Church's traditional and current sacramental system, ahead of the synod.

Among them are the Vatican's doctrine chief Cardinal Gerhard Muller and prefect of the Secretariat of the Economy Cardinal George Pell.

The French newspaper La Croix reported Vatican sources saying that Pope Francis was "irritated" by the cardinals' decision to publish so close to the synod.

But the Vatican was quick to deny this.

Cardinal Kasper told Il Mattino some of his fellow cardinals are seeking a "doctrinal war" whose ultimate target is Pope Francis.

"None of my brother cardinals has ever spoken with me," he added.

"I, on the other hand, have spoken twice with the Holy Father. I arranged everything with him. He was in agreement. What can a cardinal do but stand with the pope? I am not the target, the target is another."

Asked if the target was Pope Francis, the cardinal replied: "Probably yes".

Also, in an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa, Cardinal Kasper said he was blindsided by publication of the new books.

"I learned about it only today from journalists - they were sent the text, not me. In all my academic life I've never experienced anything like this."

In an article in the Tablet, Cardinal Kasper said he did not say all divorced and remarried can be admitted to Communion, as there are different situations.

But he hoped the synod would listen to people in this situation.

Cardinal Kasper said his impression was that Pope Francis wants "an opening".

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter
• John Thavis
• Ignatius Press
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: The Telegraph

The cardinal said doing so would make pastoral practice incompatible with doctrine.

The former Archbishop of Sydney wrote this in a foreword to a book titled "The Gospel of the Family" by Professor Stephan Kampowski and Fr Juan Perez-Soba, due out next month ahead of the synod on the family.

Cardinal Pell challenged a proposal made in February by Cardinal Walter Kasper that the Church could find a "toleration" of civil marriages following divorce, in some circumstances.

"The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realise that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment (which must follow the reassertion of doctrine) will be anticipated and dissipated," Cardinal Pell wrote.

He said that focusing on the question of Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, was a "counterproductive and futile search for short-term consolations".

Cardinal Pell continued: "Healthy communities do not spend most of their energies on peripheral issues and, unfortunately, the number of divorced and remarried Catholics who feel they should be allowed to receive holy Communion is very small indeed."

"The pressures for this change are centred mainly in some European churches, where churchgoing is low and an increasing number of divorcees are choosing not to remarry," he wrote.

"The issue is seen by both friends and foes of the Catholic tradition as a symbol - a prize in the clash between what remains of Christendom in Europe and an aggressive neo-paganism.

"Every opponent of Christianity wants the Church to capitulate on this issue," he wrote.

Cardinal Pell emphasised the "essential links between mercy and fidelity, between truth and grace".

"Jesus did not condemn the adulterous woman who was threatened with death by stoning, but he did not tell her to keep up her good work, to continue unchanged in her ways," the cardinal wrote.

"He told her to sin no more."

Cardinal Pell is one of the nine-member advisory council of cardinals for Pope Francis.

But the president of Germany's bishops' conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, told journalists the majority of German bishops favoured Cardinal Kasper's proposal.

Pope Francis has said the predicament of divorced and remarried Catholics exemplifies a general need for mercy in the Church.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic News Service
• Image: Australian Women's Weekly

In a letter reported by The Tablet, Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp said there is a gap between the moral teachings of the Church and the moral insights of the faithful.

He ascribed this partly to the failure to develop the collegiality between bishops and the Vatican decided virtually unanimously at the Second Vatican Council.

Bishops found themselves caught between their desire to minister to the faithful in the new pastoral manner and loyalty to popes who stressed the primacy of the magisterium, he said.

The Church must "dare once again to start with ‘life' and then move on to ‘teaching'", the bishop argued.

This is at a time when many lay people ignore or reject some doctrinal or moral decisions coming from Rome, he added.

"The Church has nothing to lose in this regard," the bishop noted.

"The Church must step away from its defensive, antithetical stance and seek anew the path of dialogue" on moral issues, he wrote.

Vatican II had also stressed the importance of personal conscience, but since the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae banning artificial birth control, it had been sidelined, his letter said.

The synod should "restore conscience to its rightful place in the teaching of the Church".

The 5-19 October meeting should not be a "platonic synod" focused on safe doctrinal debate and "bipolar thinking" in terms of regular and irregular situations.

Instead, it should try to accompany people like unwed mothers, same-sex unions, cohabiting couples or couples who resort to IVF after failure to conceive.

Bishop Bonny also said the Church must ask itself if the ban on Communion for the divorced and remarried properly reflects what Jesus intended with the Eucharist.

"We have to bear in mind that a large company of publicans and sinners were at table with Jesus," he wrote.

Vatican commentator Sandro Magister noted that Bishop Bonny had a close collaboration with Cardinal Walter Kasper when the latter was head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

At a meeting of cardinals earlier this year, Cardinal Kasper asked that ways be found in which divorced and remarried Catholics could receive communion.

Weighing the evidence, Magister concluded that Pope Francis leans towards the views of theologians like Cardinal Kasper on this question.

Sources

• The Tablet
• La Repubblica
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

"Remaining in the Truth of Christ: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church" has been written by Cardinals Gerhard Müller, Raymond Burke, Walter Brandmüller, Carlo Caffarra, and Velasio De Paolis.

Four theologians and professors have also made contributions to the book.

They are Robert Dodaro, OSA (editor), John Rist and Jesuits Paul Mankowski and Archbishop Cyril Vasil.

The book is set to be published in English in October, the same month as the extraordinary synod on the family.

The book offers a response to Cardinal Walter Kasper's call for the Church to find ways to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist.

According to publisher Ignatius Press, the book will outline biblical arguments in support of current Church doctrine as well as the teachings and practices of the early Church.

Ignatius Press explained that the book "traces the centuries-long history of Catholic resistance" to the reception of Communion by divorced and re-married Catholics.

It also reveals "serious theological and canonical difficulties inherent in past and current Orthodox Church practice", the publisher states.

"In neither of these cases, biblical or patristic, do these scholars find support for the kind of ‘toleration' of civil marriages following divorce advocated by Cardinal Kasper," they observed.

Ignatius Press explained that the various studies examined in the book "lead to the conclusion that the Church's longstanding fidelity to the truth of marriage constitutes the irrevocable foundation of its merciful and loving response to the individual who is civilly divorced and remarried".

"The book therefore challenges the premise that traditional Catholic doctrine and contemporary pastoral practice are in contradiction."

At a consistory in February, Cardinal Kasper said the Church needs to find a way to offer healing, strength and salvation to Catholics whose marriages have failed, who are committed to making a new union work and who long to do so within the Church and with the grace of Communion.

While Jesus' teaching is clear, "after the shipwreck of sin, the shipwrecked person should not have a second boat at his or her disposal, but rather a life raft" in the form of the sacrament of Communion, he said.

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• Catholic News Service
• Image: Mental Healthy

In light of the fact that the early Church also faced this perplexing pastoral challenge, Kasper introduces a number of witnesses who, he argues, potentially indicate a way forward for the contemporary Church toward a pastoral praxis that goes "beyond both rigorism and laxity." (p. 31).

However, in invoking the early Christian sources, it appears that Kasper, despite acknowledging that the response of the early church Fathers was "not uniform" (p. 31), somewhat misrepresents the evidence, and does so in such a way as to advance his argument in a certain direction as though it were supported by the sources he cites.

Moreover, having quoted just one author, he goes on to give the impression that the statement reflects a united and considered witness, even a consensus proceeding from certain justifications and eventually "confirmed" at a conciliar level (pp. 31 and 37).

Limiting itself to the Greek sources explicitly mentioned by Kasper—Origen, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Council of Nicaea—and leaving aside the position of Augustine and later western Christian practice, it is the purpose of this report to clarify what in fact these sources actually say, not in order to discredit the cardinal or his proposals, but all the better to elucidate the real difficulties currently faced by the Church in its effort faithfully and pastorally to bring the Gospel to bear in the concrete life-situations of divorced and remarried Catholics. Continue reading

Sources

• Adam G. Cooper, The Catholic World Report
• Image: St Andrew's Greek Orthodox Theological College

Adam G. Cooper is senior lecturer at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage & Family in Melbourne, Australia.

The genesis of their partnership, Kasper recalled during a recent trip to New York, was a fateful encounter that took place a few days before last year's conclave, when all the electors in the College of Cardinals from around the world were staying in the Vatican guesthouse.

Kasper's room happened to be right across the hallway from that of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires.

A renowned German theologian who just turned 80, Kasper had recently received a Spanish translation of his latest book, "Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life." He brought a couple copies with him and gave one to Bergoglio.

"Ah, mercy!" the Argentine cardinal exclaimed when he saw the title. "This is the name of our God!"

The two men knew each other a bit — Kasper had been to Buenos Aires several times on church business — but it turns out Bergoglio's reaction wasn't just one of those pro forma compliments you might give to an acquaintance at a book party.

Mercy had long been a guiding principle for Bergoglio's ministry, and he devoured Kasper's original, wide-ranging study in the days leading up to the voting.

Then, on the evening of March 13, it was Bergoglio who emerged on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica as Pope Francis.

And just four days later, the new pope addressed a huge crowd in the square — and as a surprised Kasper watched on television, he heard Francis praising him as a "very sharp theologian" and effectively blurbing his work: "That book has done me so much good," Francis said.

"But don't think I do publicity for the books of my cardinals!" the new pontiff quickly added. Continue reading.

Source: Religion News Service

Image: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

That book is Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life by Cardinal Walter Kasper, which has just been published by Paulist Press.

Before serving as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (2001-2010), Kasper was bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart (1989-1999).

He has taught theology at the University of Tubingen, the Westphalian University of Munster, and the Catholic University of America.

Commonweal: In your book Mercy, you argue that mercy is basic to God's nature. How is mercy key to understanding God?

Cardinal Walter Kasper: The doctrine on God was arrived at by ontological understanding—God is absolute being and so on, which is not wrong.

But the biblical understanding is much deeper and more personal.

God's relation to Moses in the Burning Bush is not "I am," but "I am with you. I am for you. I am going with you."

In this context, mercy is already very fundamental in the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament is not an angry God but a merciful God, if you read the Psalms. Continue reading.

Source: Commonweal

Image: AP/Daily Telegraph