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Volume 3, Chapter
X
The
Pope Silences Dr. Küng
The Universe
– 21 December 1979
In the years
following the condemnation of Archbishop Lefebvre in 1975, many
Catholics had commented upon the injustice of the severe action
taken against a totally orthodox prelate when contrasted with the
Vatican toleration of the flagrant heresies of Hans Küng. Mgr. Lefebvre
commented upon this himself in his first letter to Pope Paul VI,
remarking: "When I think of the toleration Your Holiness shows
with regard to the Dutch bishops and theologians like Hans Küng
and Cardonnel, I cannot believe that the cruel decisions taken against
myself come from the same heart” (Apologia I, p. 104).
In
Bulletin No.17 of the International Federation Una Voce, Dr.
Eric de Saventhem commented:
More
profoundly though: what are the criteria for “authentic fidelity?”
Surely the chief criterion is that of total acceptance and public
profession of the Church’s own doctrine concerning and particularly
her supreme hierarchical authority, i.e., the Pope and any legitimate
council whose decisions the Pope has endorsed? In that case the
accusation of "lack of authentic fidelity" would have
to be made in the first place against those who, like Professor
Küng have openly attacked this doctrine. And if the cardinals
have found it necessary, in the case of Mgr. Lefebvre, to withdraw
the ecclesiastical approbation which makes Ecône a proper "seminary,"
then Professor Küng should long ago have been deprived of his
missio canonica, i.e., the authority by virtue of which
he instructs future priests in fundamental theology.1
On
18 December 1979 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith did precisely this, and withdrew Küng’s missio canonica,
stating that he could “no longer be considered a Catholic theologian
nor function as such in a teaching role. The Universe reported
the news in its 21 December issue in the following terms:
“The
Pope Silences Dr. Küng”
By
Ronald Singleton: Rome
Professor
Hans Küng, the Church’s most controversial theologian, was on
Tuesday forbidden to teach theology.
The Pope
on Tuesday approved a censure by the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith on the 51-year-old, Swiss-born Fr. Küng. Theology
professor at Tübingen, West
Germany.
The Vatican
announced: “Professor Küng may no longer teach theology and
may no longer be considered to be a Catholic theologian.
“We are
obliged to declare that in his writings he fell short of integrity
and the truth of Catholic Faith.”
Fr. Küng
has continually declined to be questioned by the Congregation
“until I am assured of receiving a fair trial.” The announcement
was simultaneously confirmed by the president of the West German
Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Höffner, leader of West German
“conservatives.”
The professor
was shocked. Neither he nor his advocates expected such a move,
made swiftly and with no warning.
The warning
has reinforced arguments that the Holy Father has decided to
hit dissidents harshly. On
Sunday
he told a Jesuit gathering: “Beware of perilous allies, dangerous
deviations.”
Fr.
Küng was born on March 19, 1928. He was ordained at Rome’s Pontifical
German College on October 10, 1954, and the following day celebrated
his first Mass in St. Peter’s. He is a priest of the Basle diocese
in Switzerland.
In
1970, he published a powerful, theological argument against the
doctrine of papal infallibility.
The
investigation of his writing has been conducted for years.
More
then 20,000 Swiss Catholics signed a petition asking the Congregation
to treat him with “justice and impartiality.”
He
has criticized persistently dogmas and traditions such as the
apostolic succession of the bishops, the sinlessness of Mary and
rules on priestly celibacy.
His
720-page book, On Being a Christian, was a first edition
best-seller of 150,000 copies.
Fr.
Küng is under no obligation to resign from Tübigen University.
It is a state institution.
*
* * *
There
are several interesting aspects of this report. Firstly, unlike
Universe reports concerning Mgr. Lefebvre, the tone here
is decidedly mild, if not actually sympathetic towards Küng.2
Ronald Singleton, who is consistently virulent in his references
to the Archbishop, writes of Küng in almost reverential terms.
As
subsequent events made only too clear, the Pope had no means silenced
Hans Küng, in fact it prompted this far from taciturn Swiss cleric
to a degree of unprecedented loquacity. The removal of Küng’s
mandate to teach as a Catholic theologian also prompted Liberal
theologians in a number of countries to considerable loquacity
in defense of a colleague they clearly regarded as a martyr for
truth. Similar support came from his many Protestant admirers
who had come to imagine that the Catholic Church no longer objected
to Protestantism, as Küng had been allowed to preach Protestant
theology for so many years in his official capacity as a Catholic
theologian. Küng was soon to embark on what appeared to be a triumphal
international tour to receive in person the fulsome tributes of
his admirers and to express his contempt for the Vatican
and for the teaching of the Church, sometimes even within Catholic
institutions. The 14 January 1982 issue of The Wanderer reported
that on 7 December 1981 Küng gave a lecture to a standing-room
only audience at the University of Notre Dame, the foremost Catholic
university in the United States.
He was introduced by Father Richard McBrien, Chairman of the Theology
Department at the University, as “a fellow Catholic theologian,”
a statement which can only be described as an insolent and cynical
rejection of the judgment of the Sacred Congregation. Needless
to say, the audience considered Father McBrien’s statement highly
amusing and he received loud applause. McBrien himself is the
author of a two volume work, Catholicism, which should,
in fact, entitled Modernism. It is a menace to the faith
of any Catholic who reads it, but is now a standard textbook in
many English-speaking seminaries, and receives praise from bishops.
It is hardly necessary to remark that under no circumstances whatsoever
would Archbishop Lefebvre have been permitted to speak at Notre
Dame University, or on any other Catholic campus in the English-speaking
world. Liberal-Catholic belief in academic freedom is restricted
to those propagating views acceptable to Liberal Catholics.
The
decision to act against Hans Küng was a courageous one of the
part of Cardinal Seper and Pope John Paul II. They knew it would
incite the fury of Liberal Catholics and Protestants. It would
be churlish for traditional Catholics to withhold their gratitude
for this decision, but at the same time they could observe quite
reasonably that it was a long overdue and that the only sanction
imposed upon Dr. Küng, the withdrawal of his missio canonica,
was far too mild, even ludicrously mild. Archbishop Lefebvre,
who has never questioned a single defined teaching of the Church,
has been suspended a divinis, and is forbidden to offer
Mass in public, while Kung,
who has questioned such fundamental dogmas as papal infallibility
and the nature of the priesthood, has incurred no such sanction.
Some
Interesting Reactions
The
complete text of the condemnation of Hans Küng by the Sacred Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith is included in Appendix I to this
book. This appendix also includes Küng’s contemptuous and pompous
rejection of his condemnation, and a reaction to this rejection
by Josef Cardinal Höffner on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference.
It should be noted that Kung's contempt for the authority of the
Holy See was such that, unlike Mgr. Lefebvre, he refused to appear
before the Sacred Congregation to explain his case in person.
Reference
has already been made to the fact that Küng received considerable
support from Protestants and Liberal Catholics. The World Council
of Churches stated that: "The Pope's decision could not be
regarded as an internal affair of the Catholic Church since it
had immediate ecumenical repercussions." This is a most interesting
point of view! The supreme authority in the Catholic Church is
no longer entitled to say who shall or shall not represent the
Church as an official teacher without first consulting the World
Council of Churches! Dr. Stuart Blanch, the Anglican Archbishop
of York, claimed that Kung was a great theologian who had put
the whole world in his debt in a courageous if sometimes provocative
attempt "to explain the Gospel in intellectual categories
more appropriate to our time..." In an act of charming ecumenical
courtesy, the Anglican Church Times asked whether Pope
John Paul II “is going to turn out to be the Ayotollah of the
West" (11 January 1980).
The
Liberal Catholic establishment was equally indignant. The Tablet
fulminated against the removal of Küng’s missio canonica
in an editorial which compared this action to the pattern
of "life under a Communist regime." It praised Küng
as a "noble thinker," and actually demanded the abolition
of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I showed
this editorial to Cardinal Seper during a meeting which I had
with him (see page 151). The Cardinal was highly amused, and remarked
that The Tablet was a journal that "used to be Catholic."
Fifty Swiss theologians announced that they were "profoundly
disturbed…our faith in the Vatican
is shaken." Seventy American and Canadian theologians informed
the world that: "We publicly affirm our recognition that
Professor Kung is indeed a Catholic theologian." The directors
of Concilium, mouthpiece of the parallel magisterium of
Liberal theologians, insisted that they did not see " any
well-founded reason not to consider our colleague 'Hans Küng as
a Catholic theologian."
The
question of "human rights" was raised by many of Küng’s
defenders, but not one of them explained why an individual has
the right to represent any organization, religious or secular,
and publicly repudiate its most fundamental principles. Some of
Küng’s defenders stated that while they did not necessarily agree
with his theology they defended his right to teach it. Nothing
was heard from these zealous defenders of human rights and free
speech when Archbishop Lefebvre was condemned and persecuted,
indicating that their concern for these issues is, to put it mildly,
somewhat selective.
Opinion
in the secular media was typified by a comment in U.S. News
and World Report, dated 31 December 1979, under the headline:
"Vatican's Hard
Line on Dissent":
Religious
conservatism runs high at Roman Catholicism's world center – and
so does controversy over the Vatican
's December
18 verdict of heresy against Liberal theologian Hans Küng.
The Vatican's
boldness in barring the popular Swiss-born theologian from teaching
is seen by some Liberals as the sign for a papal drive against
Church dissenters.
They
argue that the ruling mirrors Pope John Paul II's determination
to strengthen Catholic traditions as an anchor in a tumultuous
world. This, they say, was already evident in his pronouncements
on birth control, abortion and the role of women during his visit
to the U.S.
Not
all the reaction to the condemnation of Küng was hostile. A very
interesting article by Thomas P. McDonnell appeared in the 4 January
1980 issue of The Pilot, (Boston). Mr McDonnell had some
particularly pertinent comments to make concerning the manner
in which the Küng case had been reported in the so-called Catholic
press:
It was
inevitable that the Hans Küng affair should have turned into
an overblown media event for those who somehow presume that
the private interpretation of public (or Church) doctrine has
not become the primary act and privilege of the theological
mind. The private interpretation of Catholic doctrine, however,
makes no more sense to the essential integrity of the teaching
Church than does the private interpretation of Holy Scripture
itself. Küng, indeed, offends on both counts. In extension of
this premise, the case of Hans Kung exemplifies nothing so much
as that chief heresy of our age which demands that everything
must be tolerated in name of individual rights. I call this
the libertarian heresy: If anything goes, then so will everything
else in due time…
I happen
to have a concern for the Hans Küng case, moreover, that comes
somewhat closer to the nature of my job and the geography of
the vineyard in which I strive to do my work. At this point,
I see the Küng story as yet another brilliant example of the
almost exclusively liberal bias of the NC (National Catholic)
wire service. This wire service, which is no less than a branch
of the USCC (United States Catholic Conference), provides practically
all the news and information that is disseminated to well more
than 150 Catholic newspapers in this country…
In the
Hans Küng story at hand, and others like it, NC invariably rushes
forth to garner the reaction angle to any given controversy
itself, but seldom provides the reader with any real understanding
of the issues clearly involved. What’s more, the initial reaction
NC invariably seeks out is that which is lodged in the fixations
of the Liberal left. First quotes and reactions usually derive
from the same old crowd: Charles Curran, Richard McBrien, Gerard
Sloyan, Rosemany Reuther, Gregory Baum, Leonard Swidler, et
al. Shall we ever see, I wonder, a highly controversial church
press story in which NC first seeks out and reports the commentaries
of James Hitchcock, Michael Novak, Bishop Gaughan, Thomas Molnar,
Christopher Derrick and others? I hardly think so. You will
not see it in the NC wire service, and you have not seen it
in regard to the Hans Kung story.
Church
press papers in service to the Church (quaint notion, isn't
it?) should provide readers with the fullest possible information
on the very solid case that in fact exists against Hans Kung.
We have had very little of that story, but have been
stuffed instead with more than we have to know about some benighted
theologians of the fifth rank running around North America with
frantic petitions in their hot little hands. To Hans Kung's
"I am deeply ashamed of my Church," Archbishop Quinn
of San Francisco has replied that he, on the contrary, is proud
of his Church – and so am I.
The
bias to which Mr. McDonnell refers was well illustrated by the
Universe report which was quoted earlier, even to the seeking
out of spokesmen from the Liberal left. It would have been encouraging
if Mr. McDonnell had shown similar concern for the distorted version
of Mgr. Lefebvre's case presented in the so-called Catholic media,
but, perhaps, that is asking too much, and to the best of my knowledge
he has never done so.
I
have quoted Protestant opinion supporting Hans Kung, support which
is hardly surprising as he is, to all intents and purposes, himself
a Liberal Protestant. It was thus pleasant to find two letters
from Protestants defending the Vatican
in the 5 January 1980 issue of The Times:
ANSWERING
VATICAN CHARGES
From the Reverend N. M. de S. Cameron
Sir,
While remaining as distant from Rome in theology as in miles,
may I voice the secret envy that many Protestants must feel for
the present vigorous discipline at work in the Roman Catholic
Church? It is a thousand pities that the churches of the Reformation
have discarded their historic concern for truth and are pusillanimous
in their refusal to deal with even the rankest heretics in their
midst.
But
we cannot escape the logic of revelation. Revelation implies truth,
truth implies orthodoxy, orthodoxy implies heresy. If we balk
at the idea of discipline, then we implicitly abandon our birthright
that the Christian faith is a revealed faith, and that Christian
truth is something other than simply the accumulated wisdom of
Christian thinkers. If God has revealed Himself, in Scripture
and in history, then that deposit of revelation must be safeguard
and preserved.
And
it is this that shows up talk of "human rights" (whatever
that phrase may mean) as the red herring that it is. If men do
have fundamental rights, their only ground is in their bestowal
at the hand of God. It was Adam who first considered that he had
the right to believe what he chose; and, as we all know, he was
unfortunately mistaken. Learned theologians who deny truths that
are integral to the Christian revelation have no God-given “right”
to do so. On the contrary, it is the Church which has not only
the right, but the duty, to discipline them and prevent them from
influencing others. For a century Protestantism has refused that
duty. Shame on us that the Church of Rome has not!
From
Mr. J. W. P. Hubbard
The Subdeacon
of Lincoln (December 21) may chose to characterize the Roman Catholic
Church as sectarian, but there must be many Anglicans like myself
who are profoundly grateful for the firm and vigorous manner in
which Pope John Paul both upholds fundamental moral principles
and defends the deposit of truth passed down by the Church through
the centuries.
*
* * *
The
condemnation of Hans Küng, and the reactions to it which have
been cited in this chapter, should prove a useful correctives
to those traditional Catholics who see Pope John Paul II solely
as a Liberal. The present Holy Father is an enigma, and to regard
him either as an arch-Liberal, as many traditionalists do, or
an arch-Conservative in the mold of St. Pius X, as many Liberals
do, is far too simplistic an attitude. Many of his actions and
attitudes are clearly harmful to the Church, and they will be
criticized in this book, but this should not blind traditional
Catholics to the fact that many of his actions and attitudes are
totally orthodox. The condemnation of Kung also provides a useful
reminder for traditional Catholics to bear in mind the fact that
since the Second Vatican Council the Sacred Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith has published a series of documents upholding
orthodox teachings on faith and morals which have been questioned
by Liberals. A careful study of these documents can help to balance
an exaggerated view of the extent to which Modernism has penetrated
the Vatican. While its
influence is clearly discernible in some Sacred Congregations,
this is most certainly not the case with the Sacred Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith.3
1.
Apologia I, pp. 105-6.
2.
See Apologia I, pp. 46 and 259; Apologia II, pp. 251-254.
3.
A comprehensive selection of documents published by this Congregation
is provided in the second volume of the collection of conciliar
and post-conciliar documents compiled by A. Flannery (see bibliography).
Courtesy of the Angelus
Press, Regina Coeli House
2918 Tracy Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64109
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