(LifeSiteNews) — A notoriously pro-LGBT German bishop has recently advocated for the “ordination” of women and even said that he can one day imagine female “bishops.”
In an interview published this week by German magazine Christ & Welt, Bishop Peter Kohlgraf, together with female lay theologian Dorothea Sattler, said that he “could very well imagine a Bishop Sattler if this were well-regulated by the universal church.”
“There are plenty of approaches in the New Testament with which to justify the opening of holy orders to women,” Kohlgraf said.
“When I look at the New Testament, there is the witnessing of the resurrection,” he stated. “Mary Magdalene, for example, whom even Pope Francis refers to as an apostle, she appears as the first witness of the resurrection before the disciples. This trace should be followed. An argument [that could be made] is the Pauline thought: ‘There is no longer male and female, you are all one in Christ.’ And there are figurative speeches in the New Testament of the body [of Christ] that are not defined in terms of gender.”
The German prelate then stated that the arguments for the exclusively male priesthood from the apostolic tradition (all 12 apostles were men) and from the image of Christ as the bridegroom “can be quickly undermined.” He asserted that “[i]n the first decades of the Church, not only men exercised offices and ministries.”
“We prevent the proclamation of the Risen Lord, by becoming entrenched in the question of women [ordinations],” Kohlgraf said. “The lack of gender justice blocks the way to the core of our message.”
Contrary to Kohlgraf’s assertions, however, the Catholic Magisterium has always held that the fact that Jesus chose only men when he instituted the sacrament of the priesthood during the last supper has forever bound His Church to hold to an exclusively male priesthood. Pope John Paul II reaffirmed this teaching in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.
She [the Catholic Church] holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God’s plan for his Church.
John Paul II furthermore declared that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
As Fr. Josh Johnson from Ascension Presents explains, Jesus Christ instituted bread and wine as the matter of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Attempting to consecrate something else, like milk and cookies, even if a priest used the correct form (the proper words of consecration) transubstantiation would not take place, meaning the milk and cookies could not and would not become the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ.
In the same way, Christ instituted men as the matter of the sacrament of holy orders during the last supper, and attempting to ordain a woman would likewise not confer the sacrament. This does not mean, as Johnson points out, that women are somehow inferior to men, just as milk and cookies are not inferior to bread and wine.
In the interview, Sattler commented on Kohlgraf’s decision to appoint a laywoman as the representative of the Vicar General in his diocese of Mainz, saying that “[w]hen women are in the leadership of the diocese or at the regional level, this strengthens the overall argument [for female ordinations].”
The lay theologian asserted that references to “deaconesses” in the early Church could prove that there were sacramentally consecrated women in the past. “Sources prove that women were active as deacons early on, they taught adult women catechetically in their homes, who were then baptized unclothed as adults,” she stated. “Women have long done this ministry.”
Sattler failed to distinguish between deaconesses that had ministry within the Church and sacramentally ordained deacons, the first degree of holy orders. The word “deacon” comes from the Greek word “diákonos,” which means “servant.” Women in the early Church could take part in minor orders and become “deaconesses,” but not the sacramental, all-male diaconate. There is no historical evidence that women were ever sacramentally ordained.
The lay theologian also stated that “I do not consider the letter of John Paul II [Ordinatio sacerdotalis] to be dogmatically ultimately binding.”
“I don’t see a quick solution to the women’s issue,” Kohlgraf concluded. “But in the Church, it is also true: Never say never.”
Kohlgraf is an ardent supporter of the heterodox Synodal Way and is known for his statements contradicting Church teaching. He has repeatedly claimed that homosexuality is not sinful and even introduced a pro-LGBT “queer-sensitive” ministry in his diocese.
In September 2022, during the fourth general Synodal Assembly, over 80 percent of German bishops approved a text calling for women’s “ordination.”