Is Cardinal Kasper losing his grip?

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 24, 2014

It may well be that the discussion of the Kasper Proposal will continue all through the coming year up to and including the 2015 Synod on the Family. I have expressed the optimistic hope that the proposal is actually now dead, except in the media, but time will tell. Meanwhile, one wonders whether something else may be amiss. One wonders whether Cardinal Kasper himself is beginning to lose his grip.

Increased forgetfulness, a reduced ability to hold multiple ideas and problems in a delicate tension, deterioration of personal judgment, and even the unfortunate intensification of personality traits are all quite common as people grow old. Each person’s experience differs, of course, but we have had no shortage of bizarre news reports concerning the ideas of elderly churchmen as they have lived significantly beyond the ecclesiastical age of retirement.

Always firmly ensconced in the liberal wing of the Church, Cardinal Walter Kasper has often had the modern media on his side. Indeed, like so many men of his type, he has been regarded as extraordinarily adept at managing public perceptions. Although his theology differs significantly from that of Pope Emeritus Benedict, the latter did recognize his ability and place him in charge of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. In any case, many of those who share my own views on things Catholic have tended to regard Kasper as what we call “a smooth operator.”

But that smoothness seems to be slipping away, and fast. Over the past two weeks we have seen Cardinal Kasper waffle repeatedly on the degree of papal support he has for his proposal regarding Communion (in some cases) for those who are divorced and remarried. (That the Pope supports the discussion has always been clear.) We have also seen him make outrageous and even defamatory comments about African bishops; then deny that he had made them; then admit them, apologize for them—and threaten reprisals against those who reported them.

See Phil Lawler’s excellent commentary on this sequence, Cardinal Kasper’s unsubtle threat.

In the middle of the Synod, on the same occasion as his remarks about the Africans, Kasper also claimed, apparently without evidence, that he sensed an episcopal majority forming up behind his proposal. Then the rest of the Synod dismantled the Interim Report and, in its final votes, made it clear that there was actually insufficient episcopal support even to formally recommend the Kasper Proposal for further discussion.

And today we learn that Cardinal Kasper cannot account for the Synod’s vote, which he describes as “totally weird”. Moreover, he insists in spite of the vote that the majority of bishops are, or soon will be, on his side.

Cardinal Walter Kasper was born in 1933. He has been retired from official ecclesiastical ministry for three years. It is worth noting that the ecclesiastical “do not use after” date is far more generous than any corresponding restrictions outside the Church.

None of this is conclusive. But Cardinal Kasper is 81 years old. The best course going forward may be prayer offered with a grain of salt.