Pope Benedict's top aide: Women will never be ordained, not even 'after my death'
'The Church is bound to the Will and the Word of Christ.'
Archbishop Georg Gänswein and Pope Benedict XVIshutterstock.com
Tue May 22, 2018 - 12:24 pm EDT Fri Jun 18, 2021 - 5:59 pm EDT
May 22, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Benedict XVI's personal secretary and the head of the papal household, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, reaffirmed Church teaching that female Catholic "priests" are an impossibility despite a "noisy movement" pushing for it.
"The question [of whether women can be ordained] has been definitively answered – if I may clearly recall here this fact – and in the negative," Gänswein said in a May 16 interview with a German magazine, translated by Dr. Maike Hickson at OnePeterFive.
"The Church is bound to the Will and the Word of Christ," he said. "She is not authorized to make a change in this central question of the faith. I am of course aware that there is a noisy movement which has as its main ideological goal the fight for the female priesthood."
Female "ordination" won't even happen "after my death," he said. Gänswein acknowledged that Germany – where most of the Catholic bishops support intercommunion with Protestants and Holy Communion for those committing adultery – has a "lack of priests, but we also have a serious lack of faithful."
Commenting on how Bavaria, Pope Benedict's home region, will be displaying crucifixes in public buildings, Gänswein said he "welcomed the decision to preserve the presence of the crucifix also in the public realm."
Hickson reports that Gänswein "made a slight ironic criticism of Cardinal Reinhard Marx' own recent rejection of Bavaria's decision to display crosses in public buildings":
When asked about Marx' claim that this decision was causing "division, unrest and animosity," Gänswein responded that these words spoken by Marx were only "a first, initial statement which was little enlightened [wenig erleuchtet]." "In the meantime, he [Marx] backed off quite strongly," Gänswein – who is also the Prefect of the Papal Household – pertly added.
Archbishop Gänswein's remarks come on the heels of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn's assertion that a future ecumenical council could permit women's ordination and a claim from German monk whom Pope Francis has praised that someday there may be a female pope.
He also said the shortage of Catholic priests in some areas is not due to celibacy, a statement with which Catholics concerned about abuses in the liturgy and the emasculation of clergy will likely agree.
Georg Ganswein
Pope Benedict Xvi
Women's Ordination