Go to: Cardinal Walter Kasper Kasper, 71, is one of the few prelates recognized outside the College of Cardinals as a serious theologian. He served as dean of the theological faculty in Münster and later in Tübingen in Germany. Doctrinally, he would be in the Reform Party camp on many issues. In 1993, as a diocesan bishop in Rottenburg-Stuttgart, he joined then-Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz and another German prelate in issuing a pastoral letter encouraging divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to return to the sacraments. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger rejected the letter. In 1999 he moved to Rome to take over as secretary, and eventually president, of the Vatican's ecumenical affairs office. He was elevated to cardinal in February 2001.