Walter Kasper (born 5 March 1933) is a German Catholic cardinal and theologian. He is President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, having served as its president from 2001 to 2010.
Early life
Born in Heidenheim an der Brenz, Germany, Kasper was ordained a priest on 6 April 1957 by Bishop Carl Leiprecht of Rottenburg.
From 1957 to 1958 he was a parochial vicar in Stuttgart. He returned to his studies and earned a doctorate in dogmatic theology from the University of Tübingen. He was a faculty member at Tübingen from 1958 to 1961 and worked for three years as an assistant to Leo Scheffczyk and Hans Küng, who was banned from teaching by Vatican authorities because of his views on contraception and papal infallibility.
He later taught dogmatic theology at the University of Münster (1964–1970), rising to become dean of the theological faculty in 1969 and then the same in Tübingen in 1970. In 1983 Kasper taught as a visiting professor at The Catholic University of America. He was editor of the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche.
Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart
Kasper was named Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Germany's fourth largest Catholic diocese, on 17 April 1989. He was consecrated as a bishop on 17 June that same year by Archbishop Oskar Saier of Freiburg im Breisgau; Bishops Karl Lehmann and Franz Kuhnle served as co-consecrators. In 1993 he and other members of the German episcopate signed a pastoral letter which urged allowing divorced and civilly remarried German Catholics to return to the sacraments, to the disapproval of then Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II. In 1994, he was named co-chair of the International Commission for Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue.
Cardinal
He was elevated to the cardinalate by Pope John Paul II in the consistory of 21 February 2001, as Cardinal-Deacon of Ognissanti in Via Appia Nuova.
Kasper was one of a dozen or more like-minded cardinals and bishops who met annually from 1995 to 2006 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to discuss reforms with respect to the appointment of bishops, collegiality, bishops' conferences, and the primacy of the papacy as well as the Church's approach to sexual morality. They differed among themselves in varying degrees, but shared the view that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was not the candidate they hoped to see elected at the next conclave.
Upon the death of John Paul II on 2 April 2005, Kasper and all major Vatican officials automatically lost their positions pending the election of a new pope. He was a cardinal elector in the 2005 papal conclave. On the following 21 April, Pope Benedict XVI confirmed him as President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
On 21 February 2011 he was promoted to Cardinal-Priest, having made the option for such. Therefore, the church of Ognissanti became a pro hac vice title, but will again be a cardinal diaconate for his future successor there.
Kasper was the oldest cardinal eligible to vote in the Papal conclave of 2013, having been 79 when the Papacy became vacant. His 80th birthday was on 5 March 2013, five days after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, on 28 February 2013. His eligibility to serve as an elector ended when that conclave concluded.
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
On 3 March 1999, Kasper was appointed Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity – and as such, President of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews – and resigned from his post in Rottenburg-Stuttgart.
Reconciliation with Jews
Kasper recognized that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document Dominus Iesus (2000) was offensive to many Jewish people and was thus somewhat critical of its presentation. However, he affirmed the validity of its content, and called it "not the end of dialogue but a challenge for a further and even more intensive dialogue" between Catholics and Jews.
In 2003, he wrote a text called Anti-semitism: A wound to be healed for the European Day of Jewish Culture. On 10 July 2004, at the Latin-American Rabbinical Seminary of Buenos Aires, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and the Angelo Roncalli Committee presented Kasper the "Memorial Mural Award" for his lifetime dedication to the causes of understanding and reconciliation between Jews and Catholics.