From The Bitter Pill:
Küng misses Vatican II celebration
17 May 2012
Theologian Hans Küng [but not a Catholic theologian… heh…] has turned down an invitation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council at the German Katholikentag at Mannheim, held from tomorrow until Sunday. [While the Jesuit Karl Rahner said that Vatican II was an event tantamount to that first council of the apostles in Jerusalem, Hans Küng said Vatican II didn’t go nearly far enough.]
The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), Germany’s largest Catholic lay organisation which is organising the Congress and has more than 12 million members, invited Fr Küng and the former President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper, to participate in their “Council Gala”. But four days before the congress was due to begin, Fr Küng declined.
“I was honoured to receive the invitation [Get this!] but is one really in the mood to celebrate at a time when the Church is in such sore distress?” Fr Küng asked in his four-page reply. [4 pages?] “In my opinion there is no reason for a festive Council Gala but rather for an honest service of penance or a funeral service,” he said.
Would that be with black vestments, Hans?
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Let us pray for Fr. Kung. At 82 or 83, he really does not have a lot of earthly time left. Here is a blurb from the ‘Catholic Herald’ -I don’t know how old it is.
‘What’s wrong with Küng, and what’s right with Pope Benedict, emerges absolutely clearly from the contrast between their respective understandings of the person of Christ Himself. As Gregg puts it, “from [the pope’s book] Jesus of Nazareth’s first pages, it’s clear Benedict is focused upon knowing the truth about Christ as He is rather than who we might prefer Him to be”. Küng’s Jesus on the other hand “is one who would apparently disavow his own teachings on subjects such as marriage because they don’t conform to 21st-century secularist morality. Instead, Küng’s Christ faithfully follows the views of, well, progressive post-Vatican II German theologians”.
There’s another contrast between the two men. At 82, Küng is finished, intellectually. He is consumed by anger; all he can do is repeat himself. But Pope Benedict’s mind and spirit grow ever deeper. He is not angry, but serene. His books emanate from a man who is still travelling, ever more profoundly, into the Mystery of Christ, whose Vicar he truly is, may God be praised.
So, the contrast between their views of Christ is, in the end, also a contrast between the characters of the two men. Hans Küng’s character was already very evident by the time of the Council itself, and not just to de Lubac; a fellow progressive has recalled how he called him aside one day, after he screeched to a halt in a bright red sports car, to warn him: “Hans, you are becoming too evident.” ‘- a sorry case.
Come and be joy with us, Hans. We are Church!
Finally, something I can agree with Fr. Kung on.
/sarc on
I too would be happy to celebrate V2 with a funeral mass.
/sarc off
Hans Küng, his mouth open wide.
I find it hard to take anyone seriously when their name is ‘Hans’.
Quoting Fr. Kung about V-II is doing what we used to call at ABC Radio “ringing up the usual suspects” for a pithy quote about something we knew they had some opinion on and could be counted upon to spew forth some pithy statement. It’s like seeing ‘Rev’ Jackson rushing to some perceived incident (whether or not it’s real or not is inconsequential…). Or, watching a train wreck…you know you shouldn’t, but you can’t stop staring.
Unfortunately, his train left the station a long time ago. He’s yesterday’s (heck, a couple generations back) news.
Hans Küng has always given me the creeps.
I can’t believe there is something I agree with him on. Ok I don’t agree that V II didn’t go far enough, but I agree that it doesn’t deserve celebration of it’s anniversary.
Must be depressing to be on the garbage dump of history.
On the Withdrawal of Hans Küng’s Authorization to Teach , by Hans Urs von Balthasar.
I would love to have a funeral service and bury all the tripe the theologians have written – McBrien, et al. That would be therapeutic to me! Would love to bury all the weird art also.
Wow, you people are bitter. Old guy, stripped of authority to teach over 20 years ago. Not particularly relevant today because of his age. Yet, you use his response to an invitation as another excuse to express your displeasure of Vatican II.
Hans is lost – “han’s” down.
Austin Catholics says:
Wow, you people are bitter. Old guy, stripped of authority to teach over 20 years ago. Not particularly relevant today because of his age. Yet, you use his response to an invitation as another excuse to express your displeasure of Vatican II.
Who expressed displeasure of Vat II?
Austin Catholics: You say Kung is “not particularly relevant today because of his age.” Your comment is ageist.
Wisdom is often gained with age; therefore, many people become more “relevant” the older they get. If you truly believe older people are not relevant, then what do you think of the Pope? Is he irrelevant, also?
Oh Father Küng, get with the times. It’s not a funeral, it’s a “celebration of life!”
Hans Kung is not repeating himself because he’s over 80. As one of my profs at the Angelicum, himself a German, said, “Kung just says the same thing over and over. He is a bore.”
Kung knows a lot, but is a man of limited perspective, lost in the trees. His approach to theology demands either strong faith or true synthetic ability grounded in a finely tuned speculative mind. He seems to have neither.
Jael, some people get more relevant as they get older. Some people just get older.
No, I do not think old people are washed up and irrelevant and I’m sorry if I implied that. On the contrary, I think we need to get the elderly more involved with business, society, etc.
I just meant that as near as I can tell Kung isn’t changing anything in his stance/position. And he does not have a lot of power or influence at this point. No need to take his statements as fighting words.
And yes, I get the impression both in this thread and in the comments on this blog in general, that an awful lot of commenters would like to turn back the clock and reverse Vatican II.
“And yes, I get the impression both in this thread and in the comments on this blog in general, that an awful lot of commenters would like to turn back the clock and reverse Vatican II.”
I know it often seems that way, but there are a few of us orthodox “JPII” Catholics who embrace the true Vatican II (hermeneutic of continuity) and like both forms of the Roman Rite who read this blog. Personally I don’t want to turn back the clock… I want people to actually look at the clock!
Austin Catholics
“I get the impression both in this thread and in the comments on this blog in general, that an awful lot of commenters would like to turn back the clock and reverse Vatican II.”
You’d be right, I’m one of them! Well, partly… I like some things that came out of VII, and a lot of the other things are a source of problems that hinder the Church. There are problems with interpreting the documents, and the Church is better served throwing the vague and modernist sounding stuff overboard out and clarifying once and for all the proper hermeneutic of continuity. Also the world needs to be re-approached. And not in the VII way. Time to change course.
Vat II needs to be finally implemented, that is NOT turning the clock back. Perhaps Kung is sad because Pope Benedict is the man for the job.
. . . just the ravings of a rural country pastor here but my gut feeling over the past 28+ years has been that there has been more integrity on the systematic side of theology versus the alleged dogmatic side of theology . . . frankly I’ve been partial to Dr. Kung since before ordination and I have a great deal of respect for him . . . I have watched the recent Ratzingerian thrust of dogmatics from 1990 and beyond and it has not been convincing to me . . . I don’t ascribe to the magical thinking that “the pope likes it, so it must be good theology” . . . there were some very definite schools of theology in Germany through the previous century, and the fact that a proponent of one school was elected to the papacy certainly does not mean that only one of those schools has something of value to contribute to the discussion
Yes, I am aware of the RotR mythology since the famous address, but I find it is much more about fashion and personal preference than about anything of substance.
Kung was thrust down our little theological students throats in the halcyon years of the new theology. That he is not going to the party is fine with me.
Since we’re talking Vatican II, what aspects of Vatican II are worth celebrating? We often express our feeling about those things that make us shudder following Vatican II, ie. loss of Catholic tradition and identity, increase of heterodoxy, etc. But what, if anything, should we celebrate that came out of Vatican II? Hopefully some of my fellow readers of Father’s blog will respond to my question.
A penance service? I thought those were banished from polite conversation past VII?! And that would something he’d definately be in agreement on with many people on the exact opposite side of the spectrum. I wonder if he can stomach that thought…
Anyway, time to quote that old Rahner-Kung-Ratzinger joke (from before when HH became BXVI):
Karl Rahner, Hans Kung and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger all die on the same day, and go to meet St. Peter to know their fate.
St. Peter approaches the three of them, and tells them that he will interview each of them to discuss their views on various issues.
He then points at Rahner and says “Karl! In my office…” After 4 hours, the door opens, and Rahner comes stumbling out of St. Peter’s office. He is highly distraught, and is mumbling things like “Oh God, that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done! How could I have been so wrong! So sorry…never knew…” He stumbles off into Heaven, a testament to the mercy of Our God.
St. Peter follows him out, and sticks his finger in Kung’s direction and “Hans! You’re next…” After 8 hours, the door opens, and Kung comes out, barely able to stand. He is near collapse with weakness and a crushed spirit. He , too, is mumbling things like “Oh God, that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done! How could I have been so wrong! So sorry…never knew…” He stumbles off into Heaven, a testament to the mercy of Our God.
Lastly, St. Peter, emerging from his office, says to Cardinal Ratzinger, “Joseph, your turn.” TWELVE HOURS LATER, St. Peter stumbles out the door, apparently exhausted, saying “Oh God, that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done…”
(copied from: http://www.catholic-pages.com/grabbag/ratzinger.asp )
Austin Catholics:
I understand you, I like your comment.
I used to be bitter and then I learned that I am not supposed to like my neighbor but to love him.
The church is infinitely better than it used to be.
The mass is now absolutely fulfilling.
No question that many of us thought for quite a while that Vatican Two had abolished sin, but digging in our consciences we found out that the old sin was there.
I am happy in the church, extremely happy.
“Yes, I am aware of the RotR mythology since the famous address, …”
The WHAT theology??
Um, frjim, given the nature of the comments you’ve made over the past several months, I’m not precisely surprised by your perspective regarding Kung or Pope Benedict. I must say though, for the record, I LIKE Pope Benedict! A lot!
I’m rather biased: I went through most of my life thus far during Pope John Paul II’s, um, reign. I went through all those struggles about whether faith had value, whether the papacy had value, and a lot of other STUFF while JP II was at the helm. I have profound respect for the man for his Theology of the Body–which I’ve read. I struggle quite a little with some of his initiatives for the Church though. World Youth Day in particular has never entirely made sense to me.
On the other hand, Pope Benedict has tended toward encouraging us to become better acquainted with our religious culture, or more precisely, our HISTORICAL religious culture. In some cases, that might be bad, but I’ve never been very impressed (not positively anyway) with most of our MODERN religious culture, so emphasizing the hermeneutic of continuity..enables the faith to be MUCH more usable on a daily basis.
..And, given the degree of frustration I’ve had with much of academia or with various Protestant..personalities.. over the last many years, I’m thrilled with finding a scholar who can match wits competently with most of the secular/progressive/rationalist professors I came across in school.
I like Benedict for his fidelity to tradition AND his ability to keep an open mind.
Far too many people I’ve known in my lifetime seem wholly incapable of combining those two.
Seems to me that, if anything, we’re getting ready to have a celebration of Vatican II in no small part because..many more of us have begun to learn and understand what Vatican II ACTUALLY TAUGHT, not the “Spirit” of the Council that we dealt with before.
Vatican II challenged us to think very thoroughly about how we live our Catholic faith.
It didn’t ask us to throw it out and be worldly, but to seek new ways to transform the world if such might be needed.
Of course we should celebrate Vatican II! We’re FINALLY beginning to live it!
Vatican II was the wrong Council at the wrong time. But it happened and we can’t turn the clock back
Modernist/Relativist Reformers, in influential positions, used or rather high-jacked the Council using ambiguity, inference and contradiction in the wording of documents and then instituted a wave of unauthorised reform after the council.
Their main weapon was a distortion of the liturgy, to further their attack on the Ordained Priesthood, the Real Presence, and even on the concept of sin. They also attacked Catholic education and practise. Many such people, and such thinking, are still in the Church today.
That said, it was a Council under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and therefore CONTAINS Truth. What we have to do now is to re-assess the Council and, in continuity, separate the Truth from the falsehood.
frjim: Your comment is far over my head, since Wikipedia defines “systematic theology” as synonymous with “dogmatics.” Also, “RotR” is completely opaque to me. Care to explain?
“RotR” is most likely ‘Reform of the Reform’, though Fr. Jim best explains what he means with the sentence, as it also features ‘mythology’ and ‘adress’ (which one?).
Also – somewhat, but not 100% tongue in cheek – I’m of the opinion that Germans/Austrians/Swiss should not become theologians or philosophers. They tend to do nothing else but drive every non-German mad. His Holiness is a (partial) exception to that, but the general picture is quite disturbing.
“RotR” stands for “Return of the Ring”. It is a myth in which Sam and Frodo willingly gave Sauron back his ring in return for dominion over the Shire. They indeed enjoyed victory over their foes, vanquishing the wizard Saruman. Sam went on to rule the Shire as Mayor for seven terms, but Frodo disappeared mysteriously; suspicious whispers have always hinted that Sam had him done away with.
In spite of the Return of the Ring, Sauron was destroyed when the virtuous Sméagol tossed the Two Cufflinks To Rule Them All into Mount Doom. He is said to have later cleansed Mirkwood of the spider-riding elves, with most sailing off the edge of the world in despair in the first few years after the destruction of Sauron.
And what about… say… Ludwig Ott… Robert Spaemann… Johannes Messner… Bp Johann Michael Sailer of Regensburg… you have mentioned Our Holiness, after all…
I am surprised he ever celebrates anything like ‘Mass:’ how old-fashioned!
Yesterday’s men, all of them, and justly consigned to the dustbin of Church history.
Tim Ferguson says:
“Oh Father Küng, get with the times. It’s not a funeral, it’s a “celebration of life!”
God have mercy.
TURNED
TABLES
OF
THE
LORD
In the land
Of Deutsch and Vaters
Races the Rhine’s
All mastering waters
No other creed
Or freemasonry
Hate like the Vaters
Of Germany
One, two, three…
Four have spoke
Schoenborn, Muller,
Lehmann and Koch
Schoenborn talks
Lehmann’s for all
Muller’s global
Koch anti-St. Paul
An Alter Christus
Is for sinner and virgin
But the Rhine’s vineyard reds
Let deviance burgeon
They will like you to death
With all their red fibre
And drown your soul
So you can’t reach the Tibre
So in the land
Of Deutschland’s waters
It’s time to dam
Rhine’s polluted Vaters!
Few years back the cardinals asked Kung to be the pope but he declined. Why? they asked. “Because” he replied, “if I became the pope I would no longer be infallible.”
Hello JLCG,
The church is infinitely better than it used to be.
The mass is now absolutely fulfilling.
Surely you must be joking.
“skull kid”: My late father’s name was Hans, and I took him pretty seriously at times. Hans is a derivative of Johannes and translates to John in English. It is one of the most common names for German men.
Cardinal Koch has just elevated Vatican II to the status of a “Super Dogma”, De Fide in that one can only be a Catholic if one accepts it in totality without demur.
Convert here (2004). Priests like Fr Jim are why I am struggling to stay in the Church. Liberalism is a virus that has infected all of modern life. I though the Church founded by Jesus Christ would be able to resist it but the more I learn about what happened at VII and especially Bugnini’s group that destroyed the Mass makes me start to lose faith. Maybe it’s time to look toward the Orthodox. It seems the Gates of Hell have prevailed. Kyrie eleison.
CatholicMidwest: That’s why I said “Wisdom is OFTEN gained with age,” and “MANY people get more relevant the older they get.”
“rural country pastor”: one could hope yea fervently hope that that implies … obscurity.
If by ‘vestments’ you mean a dark leisure suit, then Yes. :-)
“Maybe it’s time to look toward the Orthodox.”
I think I’d be a bit careful about that.
I understand your general sentiment; I recall living in a diocese in the Northwest some years ago and seriously considering joining a Byzantine Catholic parish, rather than a Roman one. If nothing else, they didn’t seem to foul up the liturgy as much as their Roman counterparts did. Trouble was, I didn’t know what else they believed–or not–and felt that I didn’t really have time to learn in two months; I had a military move pending.
Then too, bear in mind that the Orthodox aren’t precisely “perfect” either: They’re currently having a spat with Rome over whether or not the Roman Catholic Church should attempt evangelizing anyone in Russia. Seems the Orthodox have the notion that Russia and similar areas have always been “Orthodox territory”, not Roman Catholic, so they’re having a fit over the possibility that new converts might choose the Mass, not the Orthodox form of worship. Obviously it’s much more complex than that exactly, but you get the idea.
I’d like to encourage you to stick around and, well, slug it out with the rest of us. Various quotes from Christ suggest to me that life won’t be as easy as I would like, but if we stay the course, we’ll enjoy eternal joy. Consider that, if you or I wind up in heaven, we’ll perhaps remember our struggles in life, but we won’t be bothered by them as much after 50,000 years (as we measure them here in this earthly life) have gone by.
Hang in there!
““RotR” stands for “Return of the Ring”.”
When did THAT get written? I’ve never heard of it.
CatholicMD: Awful liturgy, and other fallout caused by liberal priests and bishops, is why I left the Church, and I regret it. I am a cradle Catholic, well catechized before Vatican II. When the “spirit of Vatican II” proponents caused this huge mess, I left. After being Protestant (I was young and had never heard of Orthodoxy), I was Orthodox for several years. In 2003 I was received back into the Catholic Church. Many Catholics who become Orthodox return to the Church. It’s not fun, especially in our archdiocese, but there’s nowhere else to go. The best way to tell you why Orthodoxy is not a good option, is to recommend you read the book “The Russian Church and the Papacy” by Vladimir Soloviev (Catholic Answers). Another good book is “Jesus, Peter and the Keys” by Butler Dahlgren Hess. (Read Soloviev first).
The Orthodox churches have beautiful liturgy, behind which is an inability to cope with the modern world because they are unable to call an ecumenical council. They are merely a collection of (often feuding) national churches. For example, they don’t know what to think about birth control, and some of their priests even use it. There is also a lot of documentation of corruption in Orthodox churches. Leaving the financial shenanigans aside, think about the sexual abuse that has been exposed in the Catholic Church, and is now being dealt with (more or less successfully, but at least it’s being addressed). The same type of abuse is going on in the Orthodox Church, and is not being dealt with, or at least not very well (some courageous lay people are trying, and a few clergy).
I’m Catholic because it is the right thing to do. And if I follow the Pope’s teachings, I know I am safe. On the local level, as priests come and go, I pray that God will find me good confessors. He has not failed me.
Have you heard about Pope Leo XIII and his vision of Satan being given a century of power? I’m pretty sure that century is over. We have a lot of Judas’s around right now (who are ageing quickly!) But Christ’s Church survived Judas. She will survive “the spirit of Vatican II” rebels.
I hope you’ll stay in the Church and join us in praying for renewal. Things are so much better than when I left, so many decades ago. Look at all the good bishops the Pope has been appointing. And there are many more episcopal vacancies to be filled. There will soon be many more orthodox Catholic bishops. The gates of hell have not prevailed. There is hope.
jflare,
Byzantine Catholics believe exactly what Roman Catholics believe. They are in communion with Rome. I returned to the Church through a Byzantine Catholic parish. (I’m now in a Roman Catholic parish). The eastern rites are a great option. I also attend the Maronite rite occasionally. It’s awesome to hear the consecration in Aramaic, the same words Jesus used!
Frankly, I have no desire to return to the Church of 1950. There definitely was a need for a Council (nb: the famous line, attributed to Fr Garrigou, that “there is a conspiracy to eliminate the virtue of prudence from moral theology”, leaving obedience as the foundation). How well Vat II (and its aftermath) addressed the problems is another matter. There is little doubt that the post Vat II Church has been a flop, no doubt exacerbated by combining the “pastoral”coddling of dissenters with the persecution of lovers of Latin liturgy. How much of that can be directly attributed to the Council itself is problematic.
As I have said here more than once, I have little use for the theology (and its method) that dominated the Church from 1500 to 1950. Its object seemed more like the ideology of the Church than Scripture and Tradition. Thus, it was fragmented–too legalistic and too practical, with a tendency toward fideism–and more Ecclesiocentric than Christocentric. The descriptions “systematic” and “dogmatic”, both of which provoke allergic reaction in me, are residue of that era.
I have in common with the likes of Rahner, Kung, Herring, and even Curran that a certain theological era (or paradigm) has ended. I disagree, however, with what they tried to put in its place, which is, IMHO, little else than the previous theology, devoid of its legalism. All seem to have sold out to the Post Modern. Instead of becoming Christocentric, their approach became Anthropocentric.
The advantages of Latin liturgy and ad orientem celebration transcend any era, as do the disadvantages of vernacular liturgy. Likewise, are the disadvantages of a Latin, ad orientem low mass with the people not hearing or responding liturgically.
@jflare
If the events of Lord of the Rings had been true, there would have arisen, sooner or later, alternate histories that made the villains into heroes and vice versa. Such thinking has largely dominated history for the past few decades, and long before that, we have groups like the writers of the “Gospel of Judas”. So use some imagination and see how the disappearance of Frodo would be explained, and how the disappearance of the dark things and the elves from Mirkwood would be explained, and how the fact that Galadriel and Elrond lost most of their powers and left would be explained.
JFlare and Jael – Thank you for the encouraging words. It’s good to hear from those who have left and returned. You are definitely correct that there is hope and it is wrong to despair. I am relatively young (29) so hopefully I will be around long enough to see the biological solution take place and the Church restored.
CatholicMD,
I’m glad you were encouraged! That encourages me :-)
robtbrown,
Would you be able to source the original from Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, perchance?
Dear @robtbrown, what, do you think, was as bad about the old systematicism? (Honest, not rhethoric question. -I have as examples Ott’s “Dogmatics”, Messner’s “Social Ethics”, or St. Alphonse’s “Moral Theology” in mind.) Fr Karl Rahner SJ himself always takes reference to “the school theology”, as he calls it, accepting it as the norm of theology with himself only trying something else which as well, he says, has a right to exist. (What we are to think of this attitude, which he expresses, when he sometimes uses words that feel like contemptuous of the school theology, is another matter.)
As for legalism and practicalism (in moral theology, as I understand): In my view, freedom cannot only mean freedom “to do what is good”, read: in the face of having the possibility to do evil (as the usual phrase in sermons go), it must, if it shall mean anything pleasant to the Christian, or indeed if it is different from the mere fight against one’s dangerous inclinations, also mean quite some freedom of choice between good things. That, however, makes necessary that we know which things we are not allowed to do (because they are way less than those allowed to us, as Chesterton reminds us); and these it were nice if the moral theologian explained to us.
As an example which, I think, might quite well be an example of legalism and practicalism. I get the feeling that in the old times, they were told it was sinful to miss part of obligatory Mass, but venial if only such and such part of the Mass. I’ve caught that up someday somewhere; believe me that it was a huge comfort to me. I hitherto had only read a source that said “coming late is, at any rate, a vice to be fought”. That source did not tell me how vicious it was. The source, however, did tell me that “one cannot say that missing the Sunday Mass, though scandal and contempt be absent, is always venial”. Result is that when I had missed the entrance song or so, and could not visit another Mass, I went away with the thought of having fallen into mortal sin.
On the other hand, I do not mind anthropocentrism, as such. After all, the Servant of God Chesterton was quite anthropocentric sometimes. Only it ought to be an anthropocentrism that is correct in what it says, not one that is incorrect. And for all sakes, let it be the anthropocentrism of a Chesterton, of a Johannes Messner, of a Reinhard Raffalt in his descriptions of Rome, not an anthropocentrism of Jeremy Bentham, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche or of Existentialism.
On my paragraph about freedom: Of course “freedom can not only mean freedom to do what is good” I meant things about the concept of freedom; I did by no means imply any benevolent thought to a freedom to do what is evil.
Sorry for writing things that need clarification.
Farewell Hans, we hardly knew ye!
Oh, Hans I have some very dry cheddar to go with that whine.