Hans Küng's Catholic Church Abuses

"Küng is cazzo! Eeeh, whaddaya gonna do?" — “Küng is cazzo! Eeeh, what ya gonna do?”

It’s clear that it’s always raining in Tübingen.

NEWSFLASH: Hans Küng abuses his teaching authority once again by calling for Catholic Church reforms modeled on current events in the following HuffPo excerpt from Can We Save the Catholic Church? It reads like a Borowitz Report news sendup:

“The Arab Spring has shaken a whole series of autocratic regimes. With the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Pope Francis, might something like this be possible in the Catholic Church as well – a ‘Vatican Spring’?

Küng's reforms can easily reverse themselves into disasters. — Küng’s reforms wouldreverse themselves into compounding the present problems .

Of course, the system of the Roman Catholic Church is quite different from those prevailing in Tunisia and Egypt, to say nothing of the absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia. In all these countries, the reforms that have taken place until now are often no more than minor concessions, and even these are often threatened by those who oppose any progressive reforms in the name of tradition. In Saudi Arabia, most of the traditions, in fact, are only two centuries old; the Catholic Church, by contrast, claims to rest on traditions that go back twenty centuries to Jesus Christ himself.”

Geez, he thinks the Romans look worse than the Saudis? Is this guy getting paid by Washington DC?

How can the Arab Spring serve as a model for Church reform when it so easily transitioned into totalitarian governments and repressions? Remember how the later Syrian Autumn turned cold after Francis stepped in and argued that aiding radical groups would only lead to more radicalism?

What Küng writes is about as close to pure nonsense as he’s gotten. This is saying a lot.

As ever, Küng faithfully ignores how Catholics need anything but a reformation if they want to deal with their problems and reform themselves.

Decentralization would only take away all the supra-national accountability structures that make the Church unique among world organizations (of any kind). Be glad that Vatican officials can be called out in front of the UN, but the UN won’t let itself be held accountable for the rapes of their own employees!

Papal primacy: Why sell the cow when you get milk for free? — Papal primacy: Why sell the cow when you can get milk for free?

We can’t and won’t, whether we like it or not. The Catholic hierarchy will always be there to have its hand forced. What’s more, the papacy will always remain above the machinations of nation-states, thanks to the supra-national flavor given to it by 19th century reforms that gave the papacy more power. Klaus Schatz has convincingly argued this point in his Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present.

Let’s pray Fr. Hans doesn’t go through with his plans for assisted suicide. He is invaluable as an intellectual scarecrow. But isn’t it so un-Protestant, so Catholic of him, not just kill himself? He subconsciously wants and needs to implicate other people in his crime against himself. Once you’ve tasted the joys of Catholic mediation, there’s no going back.

This whole episode only confirms Patrick Deneen when he says the following in this piece “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching.”

“Liberal Catholicism, while well-represented in elite circles of the Democratic Party, qua Catholicism is finished. Liberal Catholicism has no future—like liberal Protestantism, it is fated to become liberalism simpliciter within a generation. The children of liberal Catholics will either want their liberalism unvarnished by incense and holy water, or they will rebel and ask if there’s something more challenging, disobeying their parents by ‘reverting’ to Catholicism.”

Even though it’s thirty degrees here in Seattle, I keep hope alive with the knowledge that springtime is near (Prost, Hans!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmYIo7bcUw