Kung y Ratzinger

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Pgina 1 de 7http://2001.atrio.org/d050926KUNG.htm

Volver a portada de ATRIO ENVIAR COMENTARIOENCUENTRO DE HANS KNG Y BENEDICTO XVI 26-9-2005

Antonio DuatoModerador y editor de ATRIO

La noticia ha saltado esta tarde. Los dos viejos amigos, tanto tiempo enfrentados, sehan encontrado el sbado pasado en un encuentro relajado, no polmico, para hablarsobre todo del proyecto de "tica global" (Kng es el presidente y alma de laFundacin Weltethos, que cada vez est teniendo ms influencia mundial) quepromueve Kng y de temas de fe, ciencia y cultura. El encuentro no aparece en elBoletn del VIS (Servicio de Informacin de Vaticano) que da cuenta de las audiencias delsbado . Por cierto en ese Boletn s que aparace que el mismo sbado el papa recibial Cardenal Martini. Noticias esperanzadoras todas de distensin...

Hans Kng estaba silencioso despus de la eleccin de Ratzinger, cumpliendo latemporada de silencio que haba prometido. Ahora este encuentro resulta muysignificativo, sobre todo por lo duro que fue Kng con Metz cuando este invit en 1997para su cumpleaos al prefecto de la Congregacin de la Fe (ver ms abajo el artculode Allen en Nathional Catholic Reporter de hoy, que hace un buen resumen de toda lahistoria de la relacin Kng-Ratzinger). Precisamente Esta pareja de telogos que seencontraron el sbado estn en la lista de los cien pensadores con ms influencia en el

mundo que publica la revista Foreing Policy.Religin Digital da cuenta del comentario hecho por Kng tras la reunin. Hace

referencia a las declaraciones del Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Quedamos a la espera dems informacin, para ofrecerla en ATRIO.

Esperamos que la acogida a su viejo amigo y la posible rehabilitacin de su personacomo telogo catlico represente un signo de apertura del Papa, que extiende susbrazos y proyectos pastorales ms all de los cauces estratgicos que le marcan losrestauradores que le eligieron.

P.S.: Comunicado de la Oficina de Prensa del Vaticano: VIS del 27-9-2005.

BENEDICTO XVI SE ENTREVISTA CON HANS KUNG

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO, 27 SEP 2005 (VIS).-El director de la Oficina de Prensa de la SantaSede, Joaqun Navarro-Valls, realiz ayer por la tarde la siguiente declaracin:

"El sbado 24 de septiembre de 2005 tuvo lugar un coloquio de Su Santidad el PapaBenedicto XVI con el profesor Hans Kng (Tubinga). El encuentro se desarroll en un climaamistoso. Ambos estaban de acuerdo en que no tena sentido entrar, en el marco delencuentro, en una discusin sobre las divergencias doctrinales persistentes entre Hans Kngy el Magisterio de la Iglesia Catlica.

"El coloquio se concentr, por tanto, en dos temas que tienen particular inters para eltrabajo reciente de Hans Kng: la cuestin de la tica mundial ("Weltethos") y el dilogo de


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By John L. Allen Jr.

NCR Rome correspondent

In a dramatic gesture of reconciliation, Pope Benedict XVI met Sept. 24 with hisformer colleague and longtime nemesis, Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Kng, a fieryliberal who once compared then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger with the head of the KGBin his capacity as the Vatican's top doctrinal enforcer.

In 1979, Kng's license to teach Catholic theology was revoked by Pope John Paul II,a decision in which Ratzinger played a role as a member of the German bishops'conference. In the years since, Kng has been a leading critic of both many of the

doctrinal positions espoused by Ratzinger, and the investigatory procedures by whichthey are enforced.

While the two men agreed to disagree on doctrinal matters, the pope offered warmpraise for Kng's efforts to foster dialogue among religions and with the naturalsciences, while Kng expressed support for the pope's commitment along the samelines.

A Sept. 26 statement from the Vatican did not say who had requested the meeting,but said that it took place in a "friendly climate" and that Benedict XVI offered

special support for Kng's efforts to build a Weltethos, or a moral framework basedon values shared among religions which can also be recognized by secular reason.

la razn de las ciencias naturales con la razn de la fe cristiana. El profesor Kng subrayque su proyecto de tica mundial no es ni mucho menos una construccin intelectualabstracta, sino que pone de manifiesto los valores morales sobre los que convergen lasgrandes religiones del mundo, a pesar de todas las diferencias, y que pueden percibirsecomo criterios vlidos -a causa de su convincente carcter razonable- por la razn secular.

"El Papa apreci el esfuerzo del profesor Kng para contribuir a un renovado reconocimientode los valores morales esenciales de la humanidad a travs del dilogo de las religiones y en

el encuentro con la razn secular. Subray que el compromiso por una renovada concienciade los valores fundamentales de la vida humana es tambin un objetivo importante de supontificado.

"Al mismo tiempo, el Papa reafirm su acuerdo sobre el intento del profesor Kng dereavivar el dilogo entre fe y ciencias naturales y de hacer valer, en relacin con elpensamiento cientfico, la sensatez y la necesidad de la cuestin sobre Dios ("Gottesfrage").Por su parte, el profesor Kng elogi los esfuerzos del Papa por favorecer el dilogo entre lasreligiones y tambin el encuentro con los diferentes grupos sociales del mundo moderno".

Posted Monday September 26, 2005 at 11:52 a.m. CDT

Hans Kng and Pope Benedict,old friends and archrivalshave a cordial meeting


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Both parties agreed, according to the statement, that it did not make sense to gointo the "persistent doctrinal questions" between Kng and the magisterium of theCatholic church.

At one level, the meeting was a reunion of old friends who taught together at thefamous German theology faculty of Tbingen during the 1960s. In fact, it was Kngwho hired then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger at Tbingen, luring him away from a position atthe University of Mnster; the two men served together asperiti, or theologicalexperts for the German bishops, at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), wherethey were part of the broad progressive majority. At Tbingen they had a standingweekly dinner appointment on Thursday evenings to discuss a journal that theyedited together.

At the beginning of Vatican II, the then-Cardinal of Milan, Giovanni Battista Montini,who would bring the council to a close as Pope Paul VI, predicted that two figureswho came to prominence in those years would be heard from in the Catholic world --

Kng and Ratzinger.At another level, however, the Sept. 24 meeting represents an encounter betweenthe two leading symbols of the Catholic left and right in the post-Vatican II period.Kng, known for his fierce public challenges to papal infallibility and otherdoctrines, has long been a darling of Catholic liberals, while over his 24 years as theVatican's top doctrinal official Ratzinger became the champion of the church'sconservative wing.

The pope's decision to meet Kng, and the warm tone of their encounter, will bewidely seen as a gesture of reconciliation with the theological community, and morebroadly with liberal factions of Catholicism.

In some ways, it's difficult to know whether to be more surprised that Benedictgranted the meeting, or that Kng took it.

Ratzinger-Metz meeting deridedIn 1997, another German Catholic theologian who has often been at odds withRatzinger, Johann Baptist Metz, celebrated his 70th birthday with a symposium inAhaus, Germany. Ratzinger was on the program, and the two men spoke fondly ofone another.

"Many of my colleagues had the impression that this [Ratzinger's appearance] was agesture of reconciliation toward the theological community," Metz said.

Kng, however, derided Metz for appearing with Ratzinger without making the casefor internal church reform. "It is astonishing" and "a deep scandal" that Metz "wouldoffer the Grand Inquisitor a forum," Kng wrote in an open letter published beforethe Ahaus symposium.

"He is the chief authority of the Inquisitorial office. It's like having a general

conversation about human rights with the head of the KGB," Kng said in an NCRinterview at the time.


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"This is practically a capitulation to the Roman system, a kind of making peace withRatzinger, when the real task of political theology should be to identify itself withthe suffering people in our church. They are abusing talk about God to avoid dealingwith problems in the church."

It was all a bit much for Metz.

"Sometimes Kng conducts himself like a second magisterium. To tell you the truth,one is enough, at least for me," Metz said, adding that he was "very hurt, verydisappointed, very angry" about Kng's comments.

Kng was unrepentant.

"This event was simply a very nice occasion to show Ratzinger as a smiling Inquisitorwho can talk about highly theological subjects in a serene manner," he said. "Hethought everybody would be impressed."

Those reactions reflect the checkered history between Kng and Ratzinger.

There is no figure anywhere in the world more associated with Vatican II, both itspromise and its perils, than the 77-year-old Swiss theologian. His book The Council,Reform and Reunion, was widely perceived as the unofficial template for Vatican II."Never again would an individual theologian have such influence," wrote the lateVatican expert Peter Hebblethwaite. In the years since, Kng has become the publicface of liberal Catholicism, advocating reform inside the church and ecumenical andinter-faith progress outside.

Kng was first contacted by the Vatican in April 1967 to answer charges against hisbook Die Kirche, which focused especially on his understanding of papal authority.At that time, Kng made several requests: for access to his file ("I hardly need tomention that in all civilized states of the West even criminals are guaranteedcomplete access to the dossiers that pertain to them"); that any earlier decisionmade without his involvement be set aside; for a written list of the problems withhis book; for the names of the experts who investigated his book; the ability tospeak in German during any formal meetings; and that his expenses to travel toRome be covered (otherwise, he said, they could hold the meeting in Tbingen; "myhouse would be at your disposal").

Carbon copies of that letter went to Bishop Joseph Leiprecht of the diocese ofRottenberg, in which Tbingen is located, and to Ratzinger, who was then dean ofthe theological faculty.

In July 1970, Kng's real bombshell exploded over the Catholic world. His bookInfallible? An Inquiryseemed to challenge the 1870 declaration of papal infallibilityat Vatican I, questioning both its theological soundness and its disastrousimplications for ecumenism.

Shortly after Kng's book appeared, the German bishops' conference began aninvestigation. In January 1971, Kng appeared before a hearing of the doctrinal


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commission of the conference and their theological advisors, including Ratzinger. OnFebruary 8, 1971, the bishops' conference issued a statement denouncing Kng'sbook.

Ratzinger contributed to a 1971 volume edited by Karl Rahner that contained essayscritical of Kng's book. Both Ratzinger and famed Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner

expressed strong reservations. Kng complained that he had not been invited byRahner to contribute an essay in his own defense.

What many people believe to be Kng's masterpiece, On Being a Christian appearedin 1974. In many quarters the book was instantly hailed as a classic, but reactionwithin the circles of Catholic academic theology was much more mixed. In 1976, avolume of essays in response to the book was published in Germany, containingcontributions from Ratzinger, Rahner, and others.

On Being a Christian expressed an "option for a label which in reality is an empty

formula," Ratzinger wrote. It moved theology "out of life and death seriousness andinto the questionable interests of the literary"; in it Christian faith is "handed over tocorruption at its very foundation"; the church disappears "literally into the saying ofnothing"; it contains "an undisguised arrogance"; its theology is "rootless andultimately nonbinding"; Kng was "going it alone, alone with oneself and modernreasonableness"; the book expressed "a school certitude, a party certitude, not acertitude for which one can live and die, a certitude for comfortable times in whichthe ultimate is not demanded"; its theology "lands ultimately in the abstruse," and"leads nowhere."

Kng objected bitterly to Ratzinger's analysis in a May 22, 1976, article in theFrankfurter Allgemeine, writing that it contained "numberless misrepresentations,insinuations, condemnations." Overall, Kng referred to the volume of essays as "anoutright shot in the back."

Kung defends his workIn 1977, Kng appeared before a panel in Stuttgart to discuss the German bishops'concerns about the book and his other work. One cardinal had said he wished tohave Ratzinger and Karl Lehmann, now himself the cardinal of Mainz, with him asadvisors. Kng objected to Ratzinger, arguing that his essays about Infallible?and On

Being a Christian lacked objectivity.

"I have not wished the absence of Herr Ratzinger here because I do not wish to speakto him," Kng said in Stuttgart, "but because I had at least imagined (which has beenconfirmed here) that there might enter into this colloquium a fundamental sharpnessand emotionality which would not be wished by me."

In the meantime, Ratzinger had been consecrated as cardinal-archbishop of Munich,and he became involved in the internal discussions within the bishops' conferenceabout the Kng affair. Several letters moved back and forth between Ratzinger,

Cardinal Josef Hffner of Cologne, Kng's chief critic among the bishops during muchof the 1970s, and Kng.


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The first hint of a disciplinary measure in the works came in an Oct. 16, 1979, radiointerview given by Ratzinger, in which he was strongly critical of Kng's article aboutthe pope. On Nov. 5-9, the German cardinals were in Rome for a meeting with thepope. In an interview afterwards with the German Catholic news agency, Ratzingerused the term missio canonica for the first time in connection to the case, sayingthat Kng cannot teach Catholic theology and hold the views he does. The missio

canonica is the license that a Catholic theologian must hold in order to teach at apontifically recognized institution.

On Dec. 18, 1979, the German bishops held a press conference announcing adeclaration from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that Kng was nolonger qualified to be a Catholic theologian.

In a sermon on Dec. 31, 1979, Ratzinger defended the action against Kng in termsthat would become familiar: "The Christian believer is a simple person: bishopsshould protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals."

During Ratzinger's almost quarter-century at the Congregation for the Doctrine of theFaith, Kng remained one of his fiercest critics. In 1989, for example, he was amongthe leading signatories to the "Cologne Declaration," a statement from 163theologians complaining of "Roman centralism" in the church.

Yet the two men's respect for one another has remained intact over the years.

In his 1997 memoirs Milestones, Ratzinger wrote appreciatively of Kng. In theimmediate reaction to Ratzinger's election as Benedict XVI, Kng to some extentreturned the favor, calling the result "an enormous disappointment," but adding,"The papacy is such a challenge that it can change anyone.... Let us therefore givehim a chance."

The Sept. 26 Vatican statement made no mention of any discussion about lifting theban on Kng's right to teach theology. After the ban, Kng shifted his attention to hisworld ethic project, becoming a widely recognized international figure in efforts topromote dialogue among world religions, as well as between faith and the secularworld.

The e-mail address for John L. Allen Jr. is [email protected]

ENVIAR COMENTARIO


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Kung y Ratzinger

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