From Germany comes a call for Leo XIV to rehabilitate dissident Hans Küng. A theologian objects: it would undermine the magisterium.

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The figure of Hans Küng continues to spark controversy even after his death in 2021.

Recently reigniting the debate was the proposal by German theologian Wolfgang Beinert for a posthumous rehabilitation of what he calls a “prophet of catholicity”.

Küng, he claims, was able to lucidly interpret the tensions between the Church and modernity, anticipating many issues now at the center of ecclesial debate.

 

The posthumous rehabilitation of Hans Küng

The initiative aims to achieve an official recognition of Küng’s theological legitimacy within the Church, or at least some form of public reconciliation that would rehabilitate his image in the eyes of the Catholic faithful.

The idea is to reward the fact that the well-known theologian, despite harshly criticizing several official positions of the Church, never abandoned it and, indeed, continued to consider himself a Catholic theologian.

It is a surreal line of reasoning to want to reward the theological authority of an individual simply because his sociological belonging to the Church never ceased.

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Hans Küng, the radical dissenter

Moreover, Küng did not merely hold different “ideas” on certain details; he was a fierce advocate of the fallibility of the Pope, artificial contraception, unrestricted abortion, euthanasia as a Christian right, female celibacy, the validity of Anglican ordinations, and the abolition of priestly celibacy.

As early as 1979, the Vatican revoked his license to teach as a Catholic theologian, and his criticisms became even more severe.

His daily attacks on John Paul II dominated major media for decades, and this intensified with Benedict XVI, of whom he was a direct opponent. He accused him of having failed his pontificate, describing him as «the man who for decades has been chiefly responsible for the worldwide cover-up of abuses».

On various occasions, Hans Küng likened Catholic bishops to Nazi generals and the Vatican to the Kremlin. It is no surprise that he became a champion of the magazine “MicroMega”.

With the pontificate of Francis, the theologian advanced the theory that the Pope spoke out against abortion and the female priesthood «under pressure» from the then-prefect Gerhard Ludwig Müller and even from the Pope emeritus, who was said to act as a shadow pope.

It is striking how these claims were voiced at the same time as those of traditionalists, according to whom Bergoglio was instead acting under pressure from the alleged “St. Gallen Mafia”. Every camp feeds on its own conspiracies.

 

Proposal for rehabilitation rejected

It is no surprise that the proposal for the public rehabilitation of Hans Küng was immediately challenged by theologian Jan-Heiner Tück.

In an article in “Communio”, he rejected the idea, considering it theologically problematic and potentially harmful to the doctrinal coherence of the Church: «The coherence of Catholicism would suffer».

Indeed, he continued, Küng «called into question the ultimate authority of the Pope, as if he, as an academic theologian, possessed the supreme competence to do so».

While acknowledging that «he had a keen sensitivity to contemporary issues», accepting his positions would amount to a kind of “self-demolition” of the papal magisterium, especially in relation to the Swiss theologian’s critique of the dogma of papal infallibility and his relativization of the dogmas of the First Vatican Council.

It is unlikely that Pope Leo XIV will accept this request; it would be «an act of disloyalty toward his predecessors», concluded Jan-Heiner Tück.

Benedict XVI, in his “Last Conversations”, devoted these words to Küng:

«I naively judged that Küng, although he spoke too much and said insolent things, ultimately wanted to be a Catholic theologian. He had given a very fine lecture on the unity of Scripture, in which he offered very positive insights, and other interventions. But I could not foresee that he would drift further and further away»¹“Last Conversations”, pp. 142-146.

 

What to preserve from Hans Küng

We would nevertheless like to put in a small word in favor of the well-known Swiss theologian.

His monumental 1,093-page book, entitled “Does God Exist? An Answer for Today” (Campo dei Fiori 2012), is not only truly valuable but deserves to be read more than once.

It is good to remember people for the good they have done. If one really wishes to rehabilitate Hans Küng, one should simply reprint this interesting book.