You are not signed in as a Premium user; we rely on Premium users to support our news reporting.
Sign in or Sign up today!
CLICK TO WATCH THE VIDEO
TRANSCRIPT
Hans Küng: “You will hardly find a Catholic theologian who, for example, dares to discuss the perennial infallibility question.”
For nearly six decades, Hans Küng was a household name in dissident Catholic theology.
In seminaries and universities, his name was rattled off with other dissidents like Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx and Charles Curran, all of whom, including Küng, were priests.
Hans Küng: “John XXIII was only in office for five years, and he changed the Church more than during the previous 500 years. The new pope has already shown that he can already change the whole atmosphere just by his simple and sober appearance.”
On an impossible mission to change the immutable teachings of the Catholic Church, Küng had a laundry list of dissident ideas on everything from the virgin birth of Our Lord to papal infallibility.
Küng: “It’s more a question of an entirely dysfunctional hierarchical system. The pope doesn’t even have a cabinet or government to advise him. The pope decides and does everything himself, on his own. That’s no way to govern in the 21st century.”
In his book, The Beginning of All Things: Science and Religion, Küng wrote: Often pseudo-mysteries — sometimes constructed by theologians or produced by popular piety, but hardly acceptable to scientists (‘original sin,’ ‘immaculate conception,’ biological ‘virgin birth,’ ‘two natures’ in Christ, ‘the mystery of Fatima’) — conceal access to the true mystery.”
Küng was also in favor of contraception, putting him at odds with the Church on faith and morals, the two areas where God gave His Bride authority.
Küng: “A profound evolution of consciousness is needed for the question of ‘ethos’ to be understood anew.”
Küng aggressively downplayed the role of Scholastic theology.
He disparaged medieval theologians, including Doctors of the Church like St. Thomas Aquinas.
Küng: “The theologians were always using philosophical categories that the people did not understand, but Luther and the reformers were much more opposed to philosophy because it was not a good context for preaching the gospel.”
And Küng blurred the lines between the world’s religions in the interest of a worldly peace.
Küng: “The center of the Holy Qur’an is God Himself as He is the center of the Holy Bible.”
Unsurprisingly, living dissidents are eulogizing Küng — everyone from Charles Curran to Jesuit James Martin, who quotes Cindy Wooden at Catholic News Service: “Bishops remember Hans Küng as a theologian who loved the Catholic Church.”
Claiming Küng loved the Church, from which he dissented on just about everything, is illogical, and like all heretics, he did not succeed in changing any of Her perennial teachings.
— Campaign 32075 —
Have a news tip? Submit news to our tip line.
We rely on you to support our news reporting. Please donate today.
