On the Withdrawal of Hans Küng’s Authorization to Teach

What to many people may seem like a lightning bolt from heaven is, in truth, the culmination of ten years of intensive and tragic conflict. No objective judgment can be formed without access to the nearly 200-page appendix to the statement of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Conference of German Bishops.¹ It contains all the essential documents from 1967 to 1979. When studied without prejudice, the surface issues are put into perspective, and the real ones come to the fore. In the following I shall refer to source materials by page numbers in the appendix of the German Bishops’ statement.

One may be annoyed by Küng’s clearly distasteful, public questioning of the pope even to the point of casting doubt on the pope’s very Christianity then followed by Küng’s absurd assumption that the revocation of his teaching license was retaliation. One may also be annoyed by the irreverent tone with which he addresses the representatives of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, and even more by the obstinacy with which he repeatedly leaves their questions and those of the bishops unanswered, speaking instead about Roman procedural problems that dissatisfy him. One may further still be understandably annoyed by his way of prolonging the proceedings by answering invitations too late or with a curt “I have no time,” or “It is mid-semester,” or “I’m traveling,” or “I’m writing a book.” One can admire the lamb-like patience of the Roman and German officials with him. One follows with anguish how those who were sincerely well disposed toward him gradually become baffled and finally abandon him: Cardinal Volk writes, “I beg you from the depth of my heart to speak with Rome for once.” Cardinal Döpfner toward the end of his life concedes that if at long last the difficulties are not cleared up, “I will hardly be in a position to help” (p. 115). The Bishop of Rottenburg also loses heart: “An unpleasant sequel appears unavoidable” (p. 185).

Küng, in answer to continued pleas for revision of his thesis, occasionally makes a promise or holds out hope for explanations to come in a new book. The Roman procedures were “closed for the time being” on September 4th, 1974 with a final warning to Küng to cease teaching what is incompatible and irreconcilable with Catholic doctrine, such as denying that the Church’s teaching authority derives directly from Christ, or asserting that lay persons can validly celebrate the Eucharist in an emergency. Küng totally ignores these admonitions and says so specifically in his preface to Hasler’s second book on Vatican I, as well as in his theological meditations on truth inherent in the Church. The Sacred Congregation already reminded him at the time that “it was the Church’s authority that gave him the faculty to teach theology, in the spirit of the Church’s doctrine and not to represent opinions that reverse these teachings or cast doubt on them” (p. 104).

In the course of time dogmatic questions become more numerous. Particularly after To Be a Christian appeared, they concern not only ecclesial authority but the central problems of Christology, the doctrine of the Trinity, and doctrine of redemption and grace. One would like Küng to take a clear stand on the essential formulations of the Credo. His answer is gruff: “I find it highly unreasonable that a confession of faith is demanded from me, a tenured professor of theology” (p. 147). But a few sentences further in the document he states: “These are extremely subtle and complex questions at stake, which are posed to all theologians and which cannot be handled by the catechism” (p. 148). Are these avoidance tactics, first to one side, then the other? Surely. But it still leaves us on the periphery of the real problem.

The heart of the matter is fundamentally something simple: For Küng, the existence of a Church authority derived from Christ is a problem that must thoroughly be debated before things can be claimed or demanded on the basis of this fact, a fact which for him is unproven. Ulteriorly, it will already be resolved in the negative for Küng in his book The Church, where the continuity between Christ and the Church is questionable (and here Bultmann is a determining factor), which is why a theologian (here Karl Barth) is only under the authority of the Word of God and not under that of the Church. He writes, “In virtue of what authority do I submit my opinion? In virtue of the authority of God’s Word, which as a theologian I have to serve” (p. 102). Hence, it follows that he calls on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which insists on its authority, to first prove it theologically. At this juncture, “to quote only those doctrinal documents to which my questions are directed is a vicious cycle in which what should be proven is presupposed” (pp. 51, 74). “It is a transparent example of begging the question to present as a proof those authoritative texts which… are exactly the ones put into question” (p. 178). Küng wants Rome to debate him. He invites the members of the Congregation to come to his seminar with travel to Tübingen and lodging paid for (p. 53). If Rome’s claim is not scientifically clarified prior to this, the required “colloquium is meaningless for both parties” (p. 73). But the “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is incapable” of providing “sound reasons” for its mere allegations (p. 53). Therefore, it should hold its peace and leave the theologians to “hash out their problems unencumbered” (p. 78).

Contesting that the Church’s authority is issued from Christ has a flip side: the demand for unlimited freedom of theological research. Küng repeatedly refers to a practically forgotten manifesto demanding this freedom that was signed by 1,360 theologians, who assign “the office of pastoral preaching” to the bishops and the authority of “scientific teaching” to themselves and resist “any form of even the subtlest inquisition” (p. 77). Anything “pastoral” would be sharply separated from “theology.” When questioned about this, Küng said: “Yes, a Catholic church-community was possible and possible again without a strictly authoritarian leadership (e.g. a monopoly on the interpretation for Scripture and Tradition by the ecclesial office of teaching). Free, unbiased scientific research… does not lead to the ‘self⁠-⁠destruction’ of the Church, but rather to its renewal” (p. 179). What for Catholics are “binding truths” are for him “not so simple” if one considers “the doctrinal decisions, unmasked in all their difficulty even in Rome today, from the case of Galileo, the Syllabus of Errors, up to the encyclicals Humani Generis and Humanae Vitae” (p. 96). However, behind these examples, too, are the old and new conciliar and papal definitions, which for their part do not claim to be “infallible statements” (p. 172). Ultimately, all statements are historically determined (p. 75). Hasler’s book on Vatican I is grist to Kung’s mill. In his preface to this book he forgets all caution and reserve, and demands a complete revision (or rather, retraction) of the Council’s statements (p. 181).

Can one be astonished by Küng holding this point of view, the inner consistency of which is beyond question? (Incidentally, no authority ever wants to judge his personal honesty.) I don’t think so, because these are good Protestant points of view, which many evangelical Christians hold optima fide and the reasons behind them are completely understandable even to Catholics. These faithful, too, can profess an Una Catholica if, by that term, they understand “the general, all-inclusive church, the enduring continuity in faith and communion despite all ruptures,” which Küng also professes (p. 180). But then you must take on the cross of this church which is not so easy to bear: on the one hand you place yourself solely under the authority of the Word of God, and on the other hand you simultaneously drag it before the forum of the historical-critical method. Küng is thoroughly aware of this difficulty.

It is not necessary here to go further into the details of the Catholic position, which sees in the ecclesial office (of bishops, councils, and the pope) a mediation willed by Christ himself between the Incarnate Word of God and ourselves, and which, of course, implies apostolic succession. At this point, two things should be clear about the Catholic position: First, the Word of God in the gospels speaks in a human way, thus, understandable for everyone—even the essential truths of the Credo, of the Councils, of the catechisms, have a transparent meaning which is pre- or supra- theological (if, by theology one means a specialized scientific discipline). This meaning can be meditated upon and interpreted by theology, but it cannot be criticized away. To this meaning, secondly, belongs the authority that is also as richly established in the word of the New Testament, of the successors to the apostles (with Peter as the midpoint granting unity), whose service to the Word of God is its proclamation, as well the preservation of its purity. To this necessarily belongs the possibility of examination (the scary word “inquisition” means nothing more than “examination”) which, as the painful “Küng case” shows, can be conducted fairly. The writings of the New Testament tell of several such consolidations, which then as now were simply definitions of an already existing situation. Without any doubt, spiritual authority in the hands of fallible men is a dangerous instrument. The closer something is to what is holy, the more it can be misused—otherwise we would not have had the Reformation. I can’t help but recall that shortly before his death, Karl Barth told me that Hans Küng (whom he began to mistrust) had paid him a visit and said to him triumphantly: “We will witness a new Reformation in the Church.” And Barth answered, “A reform would suffice.”

The points of the Tradition most alive are those in which the Spirit hurls a man living in and for the Church back into the source of revelation as if in an unmediated way, in order to accomplish a distanceless interpretation in a simultaneity that can be established by the Spirit alone. Such a man is like a pearl diver who, after a straight dive into the depths, resurfaces with his treasure.