{"id":1174,"date":"2013-10-04T17:27:16","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T23:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/?p=1174"},"modified":"2016-05-02T10:55:21","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T16:55:21","slug":"hans-kueng-and-the-grace-of-a-good-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2013\/10\/hans-kueng-and-the-grace-of-a-good-death.html","title":{"rendered":"Hans Kueng and the Grace of a Good Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Saw this Reuters story, Catholic rebel Kueng, 85, considers assisted suicide<\/em>, today courtesy of my Patheos neighbor Frank Weathers, who\u2019s painting pillars and has no time to comment on those who like to pull them down.<\/p>\n

Hans Kueng, Roman Catholicism\u2019s best known rebel theologian, is considering capping a life of challenges to the Vatican with a final act of dissent \u2013 assisted suicide.<\/p>\n

Kueng, now 85 and suffering from Parkinson\u2019s disease, writes in final volume of his memoirs that people have a right to \u201csurrender\u201d their lives to God voluntarily if illness, pain or dementia make further living unbearable.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church rejects assisted suicide, which is allowed in Kueng\u2019s native Switzerland as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and four states in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want to live on as a shadow of myself,\u201d the Swiss-born priest explained in the book published this week. \u201cI also don\u2019t want to be sent off to a nursing home \u2026 If I have to decide myself, please abide by my wish.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the article, Kueng seeks to justify his decision theologically.<\/p>\n

In the third and final volume of his German-language memoirs, Erlebte Menschlichkeit<\/em> (Experienced Humanity), Kueng wrote that a sudden death would suit him, since he would not have to decide to take his life.<\/p>\n

But if he does have to decide, he said, he does not want to go to a \u201csad and bleak\u201d assisted suicide center but rather be surrounded by his closest colleagues at his house in Tuebingen or in his Swiss home town of Sursee.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo person is obligated to suffer the unbearable as something sent from God,\u201d he wrote. \u201cPeople can decide this for themselves and no priest, doctor or judge can stop them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such a freely chosen death is not a murder, he argued, but a \u201csurrendering of life\u201d or a \u201creturn of life to the hands of the Creator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kueng, who writes openly about his Parkinson\u2019s and other medical problems in old age, said this death was compatible with his Christian faith because he believed it led to the eternal life promised by Jesus.<\/p>\n

He cited the late Pope John Paul\u2019s public struggle with Parkinson\u2019s and the silent suffering of boxer Muhammed Ali, also afflicted with the disease, as models he did not want to follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much longer will my life be liveable in dignity?\u201d asked Kueng, who said he still swims daily but is losing his eyesight and his ability to write his books by hand as usual. \u201cA scholar who can no longer read and write \u2013 what\u2019s next?\u201d \u00a0Read it all.<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t have a lot to say. I understand the fear. None of us wants to die alone, in \u201csad and bleak\u201d surroundings, or to linger in suffering, or to have our gifts crippled, the things that mean most to us taken away. I do not want that, for myself or for anyone.<\/p>\n

Even with that understanding, though, I utterly reject the attempts at justification. For the Christian, nothing in this world, from our coming hither to our going hence, is about What I Want.<\/em> We do the will of the One who gives us life, or we don\u2019t. The opposite of \u201cThy will be done\u201d is not dissent, but Non serviam<\/em>, the oldest sin of pride. To see Professor Kueng, with 85 years of life dedicated to the study of God (theology), flunk this final is very, very sad. Sadder than dying alone in a suicide center. Sadder than not being able to read or write\u2014as utterly terrifying as that state would be.<\/p>\n

I learned a lot from this dissident, bright, stubborn man, who is still too devoted to a Church made in his own image to recognize how the best things he wished for are coming into being\u2014and always would have, because they are God\u2019s will. If I had a chance to answer his question\u2014\u201cA scholar who can no longer read and write, what\u2019s next?\u201d\u2014I would like to remind him that there is always prayer, Professor. Intercessory prayer and redemptive suffering, Father, for which one needs neither eyes nor steady hands. There is the witness of brilliance dissolved in the acid of suffering yet still giving light, like that of Muhammed Ali and Blessed John Paul II, models Kueng \u201cdoesn\u2019t want to follow.\u201d I would do that reminding humbly, knowing how far I am from the courage to make the faithful choice.<\/p>\n

Maybe, like many another of Kueng\u2019s unguided missiles, this is one more cheeky shot over the bow of Peter\u2019s barque, hoping to provoke a response. Here\u2019s mine:<\/p>\n

St Joseph, Patron of the Dying, grant to God\u2019s unruly servant Hans the grace of a happy death, which it\u2019s never too late for him to ask for. And grant that peace and consolation, this day and every day, to the millions all over the world who live and die in in pain more excruciating than the loss of their intellectual faculties, who\u00a0accept the unbearable, endure the insufferable, who die alone in bleak and sad and horrific places. Alone, that is, except for God, who gathers them in to eternal life.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Saw this Reuters story, Catholic rebel Kueng, 85, considers assisted suicide, today courtesy of my Patheos neighbor Frank Weathers, who\u2019s painting pillars and has no time to comment on those who like to pull them down. Hans Kueng, Roman Catholicism\u2019s best known rebel theologian, is considering capping a life of challenges to the Vatican […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[414,413,415],"class_list":["post-1174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","tag-euthanasia","tag-hans-kueng","tag-suffering"],"yoast_head":"\nHans Kueng and the Grace of a Good Death<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Saw this Reuters story, Catholic rebel Kueng, 85, considers assisted suicide, today courtesy of my Patheos neighbor Frank Weathers, who's painting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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