For two weeks now I have been working my way through Hans Küng’s breathtaking new book, “Can We Save The Catholic Church?”
By way of introduction, Hans Küng is a world renowned Catholic priest and theologian. Both
he and the then Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) were close
friends and were the youngest advisors at the Second Vatican Council in
Rome 50 years ago.
After the Council they went in opposite directions. Ratzinger
climbed the clerical career ladder as head of the Congregation for the
Defence of the Faith and became one of the leading influences in rolling
back the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Hans Küng accepted the theological principles on which the Council
documents were based and is recognised as an enlightened, though loyal,
theologian who communicates with the world of today brilliantly.
The Vatican tried to silence Küng for his rejection of Papal
infallibility many years ago, but he chose another path as a professor
at the University of Tubingen. Hans Küng remains a Catholic priest in good standing.
His new book is aptly named: ‘Can We Save The Catholic Church’? It is published in English at a most opportune time. We should remember though that the original version was published in other languages as far back as 2010.
In other words we cannot accuse him of cashing in on the change of
attitude bought about by Pope Francis. Küng wrote this book when it was
dangerous. In essence Küng argues
convincingly that the Catholic Church is like a diseased patient in need
of urgent diagnosis and treatment.
He presents his diagnosis brilliantly and in great detail. He then
prescribes a healing plan to cure this potentially fatal disease. I have read his book twice. It is easy to understand though not always easy to read. This is a translation and therefore needs to be read with the possibility of misinterpretation.
Even so, this dedicated priest, who is now in his mid-eighties, has
done theology, and the Catholic Church in particular, a magnificent
service. His language is precise, his insights accurate. Yet the way he communicates the topsy-turvy history of the Catholic Church is probably his greatest achievement.
I have been among those calling for reform within the church for
many years. My biggest handicap in doing so, was not to have rooted my
criticism in Küng’s analysis.
What became an immensely emotional issue for me, could have found
an academic basis in Küng. My dis-ease I, now recognise, was caused by
the disease eroding the Catholic Church’s own structures.
In brief, Küng traces the historical developments which lead to the
centering of all power in Rome. It has been often shown that the spread
of the Catholic Church was due in no small measure to the spread of the
Roman Empire.
Other historians have argued that, with the collapse of the Roman
Empire, many of its structures became enshrined in the Canon Law of the
Roman Church. Küng begins in the only
place he can, namely the story of Jesus and the legacy left by the
Saviour himself. Jesus speaks about the Kingdom of God as a Kingdom of
service, “I have come to serve and not be served.”
He never envisaged an institution which would, “Lord it over other
people.” Yet the successors of St Peter devoted much effort to the
establishment of exactly the kind of Kingdom Jesus overthrew. By the 3rd
Century, the institutional church centralised itself in Rome.
At various times throughout its history the structures became ever
more central – even though many of them are based on what Küng claims to
be forged documents. Kung’s treatment
of the Protestant Reformation is quite astounding. It will come as a
great shock to Catholics who judge that Luther was wrong in what he
sought to achieve. Küng says that many of the reforms which Luther
sought were entirely justified.
Küng’s treatment of the Second Vatican Council, in which he played a leading part himself, is excellent. Finally
Küng lists the reforms necessary to bring healing to this critically
ill body. Among his many reforms is the dissolution of CDF and the
instant and radical reform of the entire Curia.
This is one of the most helpful and insightful books I have read in
recent decades. If this is Küng’s legacy to the Church his suffering
has been worthwhile. He has a cultured brain and a wonderful ability to
communicate difficult subjects in clear language.
His hope that the new Pope may change the Church back to the
openness of the Second Vatican Council is the hope he shares with the
rest of us. Küng writes, “If Pope
Francis commits himself to reform, he will not only find God’s support
within the Church, but will also win back many of those who have long
since abandoned the Church.”