26 Facts About Walter Kasper

Walter Kasper was born on 5 March 1933 and is a German Catholic cardinal and theologian.

Walter Kasper is President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, having served as its president from 2001 to 2010.

Walter Kasper returned to his studies and earned a doctorate in dogmatic theology from the University of Tubingen.

Walter Kasper was a faculty member at Tubingen from 1958 to 1961 and worked for three years as an assistant to Leo Scheffczyk and Hans Kung, who was banned from teaching by Vatican authorities because of his views on contraception and papal infallibility.

Walter Kasper later taught dogmatic theology at the University of Munster, rising to become dean of the theological faculty in 1969 and then the same in Tubingen in 1970.

In 1983 Walter Kasper taught as a visiting professor at The Catholic University of America.

Walter Kasper was editor of the Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche.

Walter Kasper was named Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Germany's fourth largest Catholic diocese, on 17 April 1989.

Walter Kasper 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.

Walter Kasper was a cardinal elector in the 2005 papal conclave.

Walter Kasper was the oldest cardinal eligible to vote in the Papal conclave of 2013, having been 79 when the Papacy became vacant.

Walter Kasper recognized that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document Dominus Iesus was offensive to many Jewish people and was thus somewhat critical of its presentation.

Walter Kasper was a member of the International Theological Commission, an advisory body to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

In January 2009, Kasper told The New York Times that he had little, if any, input on whether to lift the excommunication of four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X Kasper was distancing himself from the scandal that ensued when it transpired that one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, was found to have claimed that reports about The Holocaust were exaggerated and that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers.

In September 2010, Cardinal Walter Kasper withdrew from the papal visit to Great Britain, after reportedly saying that Heathrow Airport gives the impression of a Third World country and that the United Kingdom is marked by "a new and aggressive atheism".

Walter Kasper's secretary explained it as "a description of the many different people that live in Britain at the moment".

Walter Kasper said that when one wears a cross on the British Airways "you are discriminated against", a reference to the British Airways cross controversy.

British Airways said that Walter Kasper had been "seriously misinformed" in his claims about the airline, and that "It is completely untrue that we discriminate against Christians or members of any faith".

The cardinal's secretary said that Walter Kasper had decided not to travel because gout made it difficult for him to walk.

Walter Kasper explained the cardinal used "aggressive atheism" to describe people like Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist, who have been very critical of the Pope and talked about making a "citizens arrest" of the Pope while in Britain.

Cardinal Walter Kasper has criticized the Church of England policies in relation to female priests and the elevation of women to the episcopate.

Walter Kasper expressed his views in the address given to the Church of England Bishops' Meeting at 5 June 2006.

Walter Kasper called at the occasion for a new Oxford Movement to rise among Anglicanism.

Walter Kasper later admitted that he didn't have Pope Francis' support on his proposal.

Walter Kasper praised Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, saying that the correct interpretation is that it allows the admission of divorced and remarried people to communion in some individual cases.

Walter Kasper subsequently confirmed that he had had the conversation, and offered this response for one of his remarks:.