Cracking Down on the Big Ones

The Pope attacks Hans Kueng, his church'sprickliest theologian

The dramatic news broke in an offhand manner. After a routine conference at the Vatican last Tuesday, Press Officer Romeo Panciroli stood to read what was expected to be some minor announcement. Instead, he intoned that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "is constrained to declare that Professor Hans Kung, in his writings, has departed from the integral truth of Roman Catholic faith, and therefore he can no longer be considered a Catholic theologian or function as such in a teaching role."

In Vatican terms that meant that Kueng, 51, must stop teaching Catholic theology at West Germany's University of Tubingen. It is the harshest action against any important scholar since the era before the liberalizing breezes of the Second Vatican Council, and one that was explicitly endorsed by Pope John Paul II. During the Vatican Council Kueng was an adviser to the West German hierarchy. His moderate reformist concepts won the admiration of, among others, the Polish bishop who became John Paul II. But since the council, Kung has more and more acted as a kind of theological matador, waving red flags in front of the hierarchy, questioning doctrines central to the Catholic faith and issuing personal criticisms of Popes.

The disciplining of Kueng for "contempt" of church doctrinal authority came only three days after the Vatican had questioned another top theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx of The Netherlands. Panciroli said the juxtaposition of the two events was coincidental, but that sidestepped the main point. As one Vatican official put it privately, "John Paul II is cracking down, and he is picking the big ones first." To other observers in Rome, the only question is: Who will be next?

John Paul is seeking to establish the certainty of faith that in the eyes of many Catholics has been confused and endangered by all the liberal theological theorizing since Vatican II. In the effort to define clearly what is and is not Catholic doctrine, the isolation of Kung is particularly important because he has publicly questioned or denied outright the creed that Christ is eternally "one in substance" with God the Father, the belief that the church is based on an apostolic succession that goes back to St. Peter and the sacrificial nature of the Mass. Kueng's doubts are influential, as several of his books have become bestsellers.

What irked the Vatican most of all was the topic of his 1970 book Infallible? An Inquiry. Debate over infallibility usually focuses on the First Vatican Council's decree granting the Pope personal infallibility as a teacher under certain circumstances, whether or not he has any "consensus of the church." But Kueng goes beyond that, contending on philosophical grounds that no church teaching can ever be infallible--whether derived from Popes, creeds, councils or the Bible itself. Because of the Schillebeeckx trouble, the Vatican would have preferred to strike at Kueng next year. But unlike The Netherlands' Johannes Cardinal Willebrands, who defended Schillebeeckx, West Germany's bishops collaborated with the Vatican in the crackdown on Kueng and in fact pressed for early action. Bishops in other nations have also privately asked the Vatican to act. Kueng has steadfastly refused to go to Rome for questioning, arguing that the entire secretive process is unfair. In 1975 the doctrinal congregation issued a monitum (formal warning) against certain of his ideas.

Kueng was on a holiday at his home village of Sursee, Switzerland, when he got the news. Returning immediately to Tuebingen, he declared himself "ashamed of my church." The next day, when he arrived for a scheduled university lecture normally attended by 250, the crowd of 1,000 had to be moved to the main auditorium. After receiving an ovation, plus a large bouquet of red carnations, he spoke about the case. "Through this pre-Christmas cloak-and-dagger action, the church defames and discredits its own theologians, not just myself but innumerable others," he said to cheers.

As the Tuebingen air filled with handbills and shouted declarations, theologians began to rally in Kueng's defense, both in Germany and the U.S. Most major West German newspapers backed Kueng, though the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung accused him of "self-exaltation and contempt for others."

Practically speaking, the Vatican decree presents Tuebingen University with a dilemma. Whether or not Kueng is a Catholic theologian, he is a civil servant with tenure at a secular, state-run school. The Vatican carefully checked its legal standing under the concordat it has with the German government, and believes that professors must have church endorsement to teach Catholic theology. On that basis it claims the power to have Kueng removed as Catholic professor of dogmatics. Responsibility for the actual ousting of Kueng will fall directly upon Bishop Georg Moser of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.

Under the Vatican ruling, Kueng remains a priest and can teach at Tuebingen or elsewhere and can publish any opinion he chooses, as long as he makes clear that what he teaches or writes is not Catholic doctrine. But he told TIME: "I have no intention of going to another faculty, and will resist all attempts to move me." He plans to argue that whatever the concordat says, the rules regarding academic freedom in the national constitution of West Germany guarantee his job. That course of action foreshadows a long, bitter and public struggle between Father Kueng and the German bishops. qed

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