(CNA. AC Wimmer).
Shortly after Pope Francis opposed the possibility of an ordained female diaconate, two German-speaking cardinals publicly have said that only men can be ordained to the priesthood.
“Women cannot be called to this office,” Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller told Swiss portal kath.ch on June 7. “The priest represents Christ in his manhood.”
The German cardinal, who held the role of prefect of the Congregation — now Dicastery — for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 to 2017, stressed the theological and doctrinal underpinnings of this view, saying the prohibition of women from priestly ordination is deeply ingrained in the sacrament itself.
Müller, who taught dogmatic theology at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University, emphasized “the fundamental equality of all people in their personal relationship with God,” be they man or woman.