Hans Kung On The Vatican Overture

From the Guardian:

After Pope Benedict XVI's offences against the Jews and the Muslims, Protestants and reform-oriented Catholics, it is now the turn of the Anglican communion.... Traditionalists of the churches, unite! Under the cupola of St Peter's! The Fisher of Men is angling in waters of the extreme religious right.
....

Clearly, the well-meaning Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was no match for cunning Vatican diplomacy. In his cosying up with the Vatican, he evidently did not recognise the consequences. Otherwise he would not have put his signature to the downplaying communique of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. Can it be that those caught in the Roman dragnet do not see that they will never be more than second-class priests in the Roman church, that other Catholics are not meant to take part in their liturgical celebrations?
....

But Pope Benedict is set upon restoring the Roman imperium. He makes no concessions to the Anglican communion. On the contrary, he wants to preserve the medieval, centralistic Roman system for all ages – even if this makes impossible the reconciliation of the Christian churches in fundamental questions.
....

Just as we have seen over many centuries – in the east-west schism of the 11th century, in the 16th century Reformation and in the First Vatican Council of the 19th century – the Roman thirst for power divides Christianity and damages its own church. It is a tragedy.

During the papacy of John Paul II, Kung was one of many fine theologians, teachers, and progressive bishops who were silenced or otherwise disciplined by the former Cardinal Ratzinger (and present pope) from his position as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which began life as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition in the 16th century, although its practices were enforced centuries before. In 1908, the name was changed.

From the National Catholic Reporter on the then Cardinal Ratzinger, aka as The Enforcer:

Others believe Ratzinger will be remembered as the architect of John Paul’s internal Kulturkampf, intimidating and punishing thinkers in order to restore a model of church -- clerical, dogmatic and rule-bound -- many hoped had been swept away by the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 assembly of bishops that sought to renew Catholicism and open it to the world. Ratzinger’s campaign bears comparison to the anti-modernist drive in the early part of the century or Pius XII’s crackdown in the 1950s, critics say, but is even more disheartening because it followed a moment of such optimism and new life.

The piece in the NCR, from April 1999, is a long, but fascinating read. It includes these words:

There is still the possibility, of course, that Ratzinger will not end his career as the hierarchy’s No. 2 man. At some point there will be another conclave, and Ratzinger, if he’s still around, will be in the running for the top job. Could he become pope?

We all know the answer to that question.

UPDATE: Wormwood's Doxy said...

Too bad that Dr. Kung ruined what was otherwise a very good analysis/rant with the inclusion of this piece of tripe:

[The Anglican Communion] is already suffering from the consequences of the heedless and unnecessary election of an avowed gay priest as bishop in the US, an event that split his own diocese and the whole Anglican communion. This friction has been enhanced by the ambivalent attitude of the church's leadership with respect to homosexual partnerships. Many Anglicans would accept a civil registration of such couples with wide-ranging legal consequences, for instance in inheritance law, and would even accept an ecclesiastical blessing for them, but they would not accept a "marriage" in the traditional sense reserved for partnerships between a man and a woman, nor would they accept a right to adoption for such couples.

Heedless and unnecessary for WHOM?!

And I know a whole bunch of "Anglicans" who are working very hard for both civil and religious marriage (and adoption rights) for same-sex couples.

Feh.
Doxy

Doxy is correct. I should have called attention to that serious misstep by Fr. Kung in an otherwise accurate assessment of the pope's overture.