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ENCUENTRO DE HANS KÜNG Y BENEDICTO XVI                                      26-9-2005

Antonio Duato

Moderador y editor de ATRIO

La noticia ha saltado esta tarde. Los dos viejos amigos, tanto tiempo enfrentados, se han encontrado el sábado pasado en un encuentro relajado, no polémico, para hablar sobre todo del proyecto de "ética global" (Küng es el presidente y alma de la Fundación Weltethos, que cada vez está teniendo más influencia mundial) que promueve Küng y de temas de fe, ciencia y cultura. El encuentro no aparece en el Boletín del VIS (Servicio de Información de Vaticano) que da cuenta de las audiencias del sábado . Por cierto en ese Boletín sí que aparace que el mismo sábado el papa recibió al Cardenal Martini. Noticias esperanzadoras todas de distensión...

Hans Küng estaba silencioso después de la elección de Ratzinger, cumpliendo la temporada de silencio que había prometido. Ahora este encuentro resulta muy significativo, sobre todo por lo duro que fue Küng con Metz cuando este invitó en 1997 para su cumpleańos al prefecto de la Congregación de la Fe (ver más abajo el artículo de Allen en Nathional Catholic Reporter de hoy, que hace un buen resumen de toda la historia de la relación Küng-Ratzinger). Precisamente Esta pareja de teólogos que se encontraron el sábado están en la lista de los cien pensadores con más influencia en el mundo que publica la revista Foreing Policy.

Religión Digital da cuenta del comentario hecho por Küng tras la reunión. Hace referencia a las declaraciones  del Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Quedamos a la espera de más información, para ofrecerla en ATRIO.

Esperamos que la acogida a su viejo amigo y la posible rehabilitación de su persona como teólogo católico represente un signo de apertura del Papa, que extiende sus brazos y proyectos pastorales más allá de los cauces estratégicos que le marcan los restauradores 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 Santa Sede, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, realizó ayer por la tarde la siguiente declaración:

"El sábado 24 de septiembre de 2005 tuvo lugar un coloquio de Su Santidad el Papa Benedicto XVI con el profesor Hans Küng (Tubinga). El encuentro se desarrolló en un clima amistoso. Ambos estaban de acuerdo en que no tenía sentido entrar, en el marco del encuentro, en una discusión sobre las divergencias doctrinales persistentes entre Hans Küng y el Magisterio de la Iglesia Católica.

"El coloquio se concentró, por tanto, en dos temas que tienen particular interés para el trabajo reciente de Hans Küng: la cuestión de la ética mundial ("Weltethos") y el diálogo de la razón de las ciencias naturales con la razón de la fe cristiana. El profesor Küng subrayó que su proyecto de ética mundial no es ni mucho menos una construcción intelectual abstracta, sino que pone de manifiesto los valores morales sobre los que convergen las grandes religiones del mundo, a pesar de todas las diferencias, y que pueden percibirse como criterios válidos -a causa de su convincente carácter razonable- por la razón secular.

"El Papa apreció el esfuerzo del profesor Küng para contribuir a un renovado reconocimiento de los valores morales esenciales de la humanidad a través del diálogo de las religiones y en el encuentro con la razón secular. Subrayó que el compromiso por una renovada conciencia de los valores fundamentales de la vida humana es también un objetivo importante de su pontificado.

"Al mismo tiempo, el Papa reafirmó su acuerdo sobre el intento del profesor Küng de reavivar el diálogo entre fe y ciencias naturales y de hacer valer, en relación con el pensamiento científico, la sensatez y la necesidad de la cuestión sobre Dios ("Gottesfrage"). Por su parte, el profesor Küng elogió los esfuerzos del Papa por favorecer el diálogo entre las religiones y también el encuentro con los diferentes grupos sociales del mundo moderno".

 

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

Hans Küng and Pope Benedict,
old friends and archrivals
have a cordial meeting

 

By John L. Allen Jr.
NCR Rome correspondent

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

In 1979, Küng'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, Küng has been a leading critic of both many of the doctrinal positions espoused by Ratzinger, and the investigatory procedures by which they are enforced.

While the two men agreed to disagree on doctrinal matters, the pope offered warm praise for Küng's efforts to foster dialogue among religions and with the natural sciences, while Küng expressed support for the pope's commitment along the same lines.

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 Küng's efforts to build a Weltethos, or a moral framework based on values shared among religions which can also be recognized by secular reason.

Both parties agreed, according to the statement, that it did not make sense to go into the "persistent doctrinal questions" between Küng and the magisterium of the Catholic church.

At one level, the meeting was a reunion of old friends who taught together at the famous German theology faculty of Tübingen during the 1960s. In fact, it was Küng who hired then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger at Tübingen, luring him away from a position at the University of Münster; the two men served together as periti, or theological experts for the German bishops, at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), where they were part of the broad progressive majority. At Tübingen they had a standing weekly dinner appointment on Thursday evenings to discuss a journal that they edited 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 figures who came to prominence in those years would be heard from in the Catholic world -- Küng and Ratzinger.

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

The pope's decision to meet Küng, and the warm tone of their encounter, will be widely seen as a gesture of reconciliation with the theological community, and more broadly with liberal factions of Catholicism.

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

Ratzinger-Metz meeting derided
In 1997, another German Catholic theologian who has often been at odds with Ratzinger, Johann Baptist Metz, celebrated his 70th birthday with a symposium in Ahaus, Germany. Ratzinger was on the program, and the two men spoke fondly of one another.

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

Küng, however, derided Metz for appearing with Ratzinger without making the case for internal church reform. "It is astonishing" and "a deep scandal" that Metz "would offer the Grand Inquisitor a forum," Küng wrote in an open letter published before the 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," Küng said in an NCR interview at the time.

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

It was all a bit much for Metz.

"Sometimes Küng 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, very disappointed, very angry" about Küng's comments.

Küng was unrepentant.

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

Those reactions reflect the checkered history between Küng and Ratzinger.

There is no figure anywhere in the world more associated with Vatican II, both its promise 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 late Vatican expert Peter Hebblethwaite. In the years since, Küng has become the public face of liberal Catholicism, advocating reform inside the church and ecumenical and inter-faith progress outside.

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

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

In July 1970, Küng's real bombshell exploded over the Catholic world. His book Infallible? An Inquiry seemed to challenge the 1870 declaration of papal infallibility at Vatican I, questioning both its theological soundness and its disastrous implications for ecumenism.

Shortly after Küng's book appeared, the German bishops' conference began an investigation. In January 1971, Küng appeared before a hearing of the doctrinal commission of the conference and their theological advisors, including Ratzinger. On February 8, 1971, the bishops' conference issued a statement denouncing Küng's book.

Ratzinger contributed to a 1971 volume edited by Karl Rahner that contained essays critical of Küng's book. Both Ratzinger and famed Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner expressed strong reservations. Küng complained that he had not been invited by Rahner to contribute an essay in his own defense.

What many people believe to be Küng's masterpiece, On Being a Christian appeared in 1974. In many quarters the book was instantly hailed as a classic, but reaction within the circles of Catholic academic theology was much more mixed. In 1976, a volume of essays in response to the book was published in Germany, containing contributions 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 and into the questionable interests of the literary"; in it Christian faith is "handed over to corruption at its very foundation"; the church disappears "literally into the saying of nothing"; it contains "an undisguised arrogance"; its theology is "rootless and ultimately nonbinding"; Küng was "going it alone, alone with oneself and modern reasonableness"; the book expressed "a school certitude, a party certitude, not a certitude for which one can live and die, a certitude for comfortable times in which the ultimate is not demanded"; its theology "lands ultimately in the abstruse," and "leads nowhere."

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

Kung defends his work
In 1977, Küng 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 to have Ratzinger and Karl Lehmann, now himself the cardinal of Mainz, with him as advisors. Küng 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 speak to him," Küng said in Stuttgart, "but because I had at least imagined (which has been confirmed here) that there might enter into this colloquium a fundamental sharpness and 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' conference about the Küng affair. Several letters moved back and forth between Ratzinger, Cardinal Josef Höffner of Cologne, Küng's chief critic among the bishops during much of the 1970s, and Küng.

The first hint of a disciplinary measure in the works came in an Oct. 16, 1979, radio interview given by Ratzinger, in which he was strongly critical of Küng's article about the pope. On Nov. 5-9, the German cardinals were in Rome for a meeting with the pope. In an interview afterwards with the German Catholic news agency, Ratzinger used the term missio canonica for the first time in connection to the case, saying that Küng 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 a pontifically recognized institution.

On Dec. 18, 1979, the German bishops held a press conference announcing a declaration from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that Küng was no longer qualified to be a Catholic theologian.

In a sermon on Dec. 31, 1979, Ratzinger defended the action against Küng in terms that would become familiar: "The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should 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 the Faith, Küng remained one of his fiercest critics. In 1989, for example, he was among the leading signatories to the "Cologne Declaration," a statement from 163 theologians 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 Küng. In the immediate reaction to Ratzinger's election as Benedict XVI, Küng to some extent returned the favor, calling the result "an enormous disappointment," but adding, "The papacy is such a challenge that it can change anyone.... Let us therefore give him a chance."

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

The e-mail address for John L. Allen Jr. is jallen@natcath.org
 

 

 

 

 

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