Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini has called for a dismantling of the Vatican diplomatic corps, the convening of an ecumenical council to deal with Catholics who are divorced and remarried, and a major overhaul of the Sacrament of Penance.

“The diplomatic structure [of the Holy See], in my view, is all too redundant and requires far too much of the Church’s energy,” the 82 year-old Jesuit cardinal said in an interview published on 18 June in the left-leaning La Repubblica.

“For many, many centuries this [diplomatic] structure did not exist and in the future it could be greatly reduced, if not actually dismantled,” he said.

This is only the latest in a long list of reforms the former Archbishop of Milan has suggested in the past two years.

Through a series of carefully placed interviews and in several books he has become the Church’s most senior member to urge the Vatican to allow discussion on a wide range of issues. These include married priests, greater roles for women in the Church and a rethinking of other ecclesial practices.

Cardinal Martini told La Repubblica it was necessary to enact what “was decreed by the Council of Constance” (1414-18) and convoke every 20 or 30 years to deal with only one or two themes at most.

He called for a council to discuss the church situation for Catholics who are divorced and remarried and to revitalise the Sacrament of Penance. “Confession is an extremely important sacrament, but it has become pallid,” he said.