Georges Marie Martin Cottier O.P., (born on April 25, 1922 in Carouge (Switzerland)) is a Swiss Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, Dominican, Theologian emeritus of the Pontifical Household.
Georges Cottier joined the Dominican Order in 1945 and was ordained priest in 1951. He was a professor at the Universities of Geneva and Fribourg. He became secretary of the International Theological Commission in 1989. He was nominated Pro-Theologian of the Pontifical Household in 1990. He was appointed Titular Archbishop of Tullia in 2003 and consecrated on 20 October 2003.
He was created and proclaimed Cardinal-Deacon of Santi Domenico e Sisto (Sts. Dominic and Sixtus).[1] by Pope John Paul II in the Consistory of October 21, 2003,[2]
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In the run-up to President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated July 10 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Cottier praised Obama’s “humble realism” and compared the president’s approach to abortion to the thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas and early Christian tradition about framing laws in a pluralistic society. [3]
Cardinal Cottier reacted to John Paul II's encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia by saying that the Catholic Church rejects the concept of open communion. [4]
Cardinal Cottier has defended the Church's view that the embryo is fully a human being. [5]
He has come out in defense of Pope Pius XII against those that continue to criticize his legacy. [6]
Cottier has been critical of anonymous Christianity, saying that a theological system that absorbs all realities into Christ ends by turning Christ into a kind of metaphysical postulate of the affirmation of human values, which makes the Church incapable of engaging in serious dialogue, even on the level of human rights. And then, saying that everybody is already of Christ, whether they know it or no, can make the mission futile. [7]
Cottier has said that the use of condoms may be morally licit in the context of fighting AIDS, a position that goes against official teaching on the matter (see religion and AIDS). [8]