German Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer has come out strongly against the admission of women to the Catholic priesthood amid ongoing criticism from women within the German Church.

“Jesus consciously only called men to be apostles, as the progenitors of the new Israel, who then had to realize him in the Christian cult,” he said in Ingolstadt at a church service opening a conference of the Conservative Forum of German Catholics.

The text of the sermon from Friday was published on the homepage of his diocese in the southern city of Regensburg on Saturday.

Voderholzer also criticized what he called “gender ideology.”

“The fundamental questioning of the relatedness of man and woman in creation” would have “considerable” anthropological and theological consequences.

In May, several thousand women across Germany participated in a church strike dubbed Maria 2.0, criticizing male power structures in the Catholic Church and the handling of sexual abuse cases.

They also demanded access to ordination for women.

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