Hans Küng

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Hans Küng
Hans Küng

Hans Küng (born March 19, 1928 in Sursee, Canton of Lucerne), is a Catholic priest, an eminent Swiss theologian, and a prolific author. Since 1995 he has been President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic (Stiftung Weltethos). Küng remains a Catholic priest in good standing,[1] but the Vatican has rescinded his authority to teach Catholic theology. Though he had to leave the Catholic faculty, he remained at the University of Tübingen as a professor of Ecumenical Theology, serving as Emeritus Professor since 1996. Neither his bishop nor the Holy See have revoked his priestly faculties.

Contents

[edit] Life and work

Küng studied theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained in 1954. He then continued his education in various European cities, including the Sorbonne in Paris. His doctoral thesis was entitled "Justification. La doctrine de Karl Barth et une réflexion catholique." Published in English in 1964, it located a number of areas of agreement between Barthian and Catholic theologies of justification, concluding that the differences were not fundamental and did not warrant a division in the Church. (The book included a letter from Karl Barth, attesting that he agreed with Küng's representation of his theology.)

In 1960 Küng was appointed professor of theology at Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany. Just like his colleague Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), in 1962 he was appointed peritus by Pope John XXIII, serving as an expert theological advisor to members of the Second Vatican Council until its conclusion in 1965. At Küng's instigation, the Catholic Faculty at Tübingen appointed Ratzinger as professor of dogmatics. However, due to the 1968 students revolt, Ratzinger moved to the university of Regensburg, ending the cooperation between the two.

In the late 1960s Küng became the first major Roman Catholic theologian after the late 19th century Old Catholic Church schism to reject the doctrine of papal infallibility, in particular in his book Infallible? An Inquiry (1971). Consequently, on December 18, 1979, he was stripped of his license to teach as a Roman Catholic theologian but carried on teaching as a tenured professor of ecumenical theology at the University of Tübingen until his retirement (Emeritierung) in 1996. To this day he remains a persistent critic of papal authority, which he claims is man-made (and thus reversible) rather than instituted by God. He was not excommunicated and remains a Roman Catholic priest.

In the early 1990s Küng initiated a project called Weltethos (Global Ethic), which is an attempt at describing what the world religions have in common (rather than what separates them) and at drawing up a minimal code of rules of behaviour everyone can accept. His vision of a global ethic was embodied in the document for which he wrote the initial draft, Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration. This Declaration was signed at the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions by many religious and spiritual leaders from around the world. Later Küng's project would culminate into the UN's Dialogue Among Civilizations to which Küng was assigned as one of 19 "eminent persons." Even though completed shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (in November 2001), there was no coverage in the U.S. media, something about which Küng complained.

Based on "Studium Generale" lectures at Tübingen University, his latest publication Der Anfang aller Dinge ("The beginning of all things") discusses the relationship between science and religion. In an analysis spanning from quantum physics to neuroscience, he comments on the current debate about evolution in the United States, dismissing those opposed to the teaching of evolution as "naive [and] un-enlightened."

On September 26, 2005 he had a friendly discussion about Catholic theology over dinner with Pope Benedict XVI, surprising some observers.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Küng, The Catholic Church: A Short History (2002): "In 1979 I then had personal experience of the Inquisition under another pope. My permission to teach was withdrawn by the church, but nevertheless I retained my chair and my institute (which was separated from the Catholic faculty). For two further decades I remained unswervingly faithful to my church in critical loyalty, and to the present day I have remained professor of ecumenical theology and a Catholic priest in good standing. I affirm the papacy for the Catholic Church, but at the same time indefatigably call for a radical reform of it in accordance with the criterion of the gospel."

[edit] Select bibliography

[edit] Quotes

  • "If you cannot see that divinity includes male and female characteristics and at the same time transcends them, you have bad consequences. Rome and Cardinal O'Connor base the exclusion of women priests on the idea that God is the father and Jesus is his son, there were only male disciples, etc. They are defending a patriarchal church with a patriarchal God. We must fight the patriarchal misunderstanding of God." — Newsweek interview, July 8, 1991
  • "Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command." — Newsweek interview, July 8, 1991
  • "There will be no world peace until there is peace among the religions" - Kung speaking on Global Ethic

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../h/a/n/Hans_K%C3%BCng_33a2.html"