Having made a general internal criticism of Christianity in this chapter, Hans Kung specifically launches an internal criticism of the Catholic tradition in terms that have shocked even some of his close colleagues, such as Karl Rahner and which his enemies in the Catholic hierarchy and in the right-wing of Catholicism have used as ammunition in a half-century of war against him and Vatican II.
No with the best will in the world I cannot call it Christian, or possessed of genuine Christian values, when in my own church, for example, ecclesiastical authority alone is involved, instead of Jesus Christ himself, in questions which are important for millions of Catholics. I must repeat; With the best will in the world, I cannot think that the One to whom Christianity appeals, Jesus of Nazareth himself, would today take up the same attitude as the Roman authorities in the questions at issue. I cannot believe
- that he, who warned the Pharisees against laying intolerable burdens on people's shoulders would today declare all "artificial" contraception to be mortal sin;
- that he, who particularly invited failures to his table, would forbid all remarried divorced people ever to approach that table
I'll point out here that in the very Gospel accounts of "the last supper" that the Catholic church and Christian churches in general hold as the institution of the sacrament of Eucharist have Jesus, himself, serving Peter who he said would deny him and Judas who he said was about to betray him to his assassins. It is an entirely twisted theology of the Eucharist that would hold that remarriage after divorce - which in the modern context means an entirely different thing than it would have to the people Jesus said that to - is a more serious bar to Communion than far more serious sins. Murderers, pedophile-priests, etc. are not barred from receiving Communion. This is a scandal based in the kind of idiocy that comes with having a church ruled by unmarried men who have not, in almost any case, ever had a normal life as a father or husband. It is based in the kind of debauched and degraded legalism of the likes of one of my favorite examples of that depravity, the Canon Lawyer, Raymond Cardinal Burke and his co-signers of the most dubious "dubia" launched against Pope Francis when he proposed reconsideration of that ban on remarried, divorced Catholics, at least two of whom have since been implicated in the pedophile scandal.
- That he, who was constantly accompanied by women (who provided for his keep), and whose apostles, except for Paul, were all married and remained so, would today have forbidden marriage to all ordained men and ordination to all women.
Breaking in as these points occur to me, but it is, again an absurd scandal that because of John Paul II's massively misogynistic ban on even talking about the ordination of women - upheld by his henchman who became his successor and even, in much milder terms by good Pope Francis, merely bringing up or acknowledging the ordination of women will get you automatically kicked out of the priesthood and excommunicated whereas raping children, breaking your vow of celibacy, fathering children with multiple women (as some of John Paul II's favorites did) will, after long and tortuous and far from dependable prosecution, get you defrocked, at most, but not barred from the sacraments or even, in may cases, forbidden to perform priestly functions. I can't help but point out that the Roman Catholic Women Priests have not generated any scandal to match the one that the all-unmarried hierarchy of the Catholic church has. Jesus said, "by their fruit you will know them," I think it's anti-Christian to not take that standard taught by him seriously.
- that he, who said "I have compassion on the crowd," would have increasingly deprived congregations of their pastors and allowed a system of pastoral care built up over a period of a thousand years to collapse.
My mother's much loved, very large, well established and very active parish, in a church building which was paid for long before I was born and which had no mortgage, was destroyed by what is certainly if not the worst, the second worst Archbishop of Portland, Maine who is currently a Bishop in Buffalo and whose presence there is an ongoing scandal of the pedophile scandals. The excuse was the ever dwindling, ever aging, ever dying all-unmarried, all-male priesthood, though selling the property to pay off the huge liabilities the all-unmarried, all-male priesthood had generated through the pedophile and other sexual scandals was what all of us really believed was behind it.
Those "pastors" broke the hearts of many Catholics who were members of such closed parishes, many of whom have stopped attending mass or who go to another parish or who have started attending Protestant churches in the are. I know of several who have gone over to the UCC and other churches in the area.
- that he, who defended the adulteress and sinners, would pas such harsh verdicts in delicate questions requiring discriminating and critical judgement, like pre-marital sex, homosexuality, and abortion.
I especially feel close to Kung on this point and not merely as a gay man who holds that women have the right to full ownership and control of their own bodies even when I might not like what they choose to do with them. I don't like what gay men, sometimes, choose to do with their bodies either, BUT IT IS THEIR BODY. I have had enormous push back when I've tried to point out the dangers of promiscuity, anal sex, unprotected sex, and other sex which increases the risk of infection and injury among gay men. One of my earliest pieces, as I recall on the 25th anniversary of the HIV virus being discovered as the cause of AIDS, I had furious responses that claimed I couldn't be a gay man because "I never heard a gay man talk like that." I actually wrote that down and had it posted at my desk for a few years, so I remember it verbatim.
I am entirely in agreement that what, sometimes, makes sex an occasion of sin, of evil, being acknowledged WHILE ALSO ACKNOWLEDGING THAT SEX WITHOUT HARM TO ANYONE, WITHOUT THE PRODUCTION OF AN UNWANTED PREGNANCY, WITHOUT INFECTION OR INJURY TO BODY, WITHOUT USE, ABUSE, DEGRADATION, ENCOURAGEMENT OF SELF-LOATHING, ETC. is not a sin, it can be the most important act that people share between themselves, an occasion of love. You have to be a really twisted person to fail to acknowledge that last one while seeing only the things I capitalized in regard to sex. I think the all-male, all-unmarried priesthood has filled the history of Catholicism with men who are incapable of understanding sex because of that formation and that tradition.
I will point out before continuing what Hans Kung's internal criticism of Catholicism, from the time of John Paul II's neo-integralist regime, that he, as a young Catholic theologian wrote his dissertation on the theology of the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth "Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection," written during Barth's life and with his written endorsement of Kung's understanding of his writing. A number of years ago, it was one of the most astonishing things I'd read that no less an arch conservative as Pope Pius XII had called Barth the most significant theologian since Aquinas, who was, at that time, the official theologian of Roman Catholicism - the hold of Aquinas has loosened quite a lot since then.
One of the slams his enemies use against Kung claims that he's more of a Protestant theologian than a Catholic one (his license to teach as a Roman Catholic theologian was removed under JPII and Benedict XVI) because he puts far more emphasis on the text of the New Testament than he does medieval theology. I suspect that this will turn out to be the case that his enemies are seen as dishonest and benighted as, if I am correct, the enemies of Aquinas were held to be as his theology came to dominate in Catholicism. The heroes of orthodoxy were, often, themselves the outsiders, those who make internal criticism are often held as infidels within the very institution they are criticizing. But an examination of conscience, especially by those who hold power, is among the most basic and
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