THE GREAT SWISS THEOLOGIAN Hans Küng has died at the age of 93. His death isn't anything like a shock, he has been seriously ill for years with Parkinson's disease and 93 must be like living under an imminent order of execution no matter how good you're feeling. Anyone who reads my blog knows that over the past six or so years I've been more and more influenced by his writing and with what he's said in interviews. It's a bit of a coincidence that I mentioned Elizabeth A. Johnson this morning because it was through a footnote in one of her books that I started reading the enormous trilogy of his work, Does God Exist, which she rightly said was the best response to that question, a very rigorous answer to the kind of contemporary atheism that is advocated out of serious thinking instead of pop-kulcha dreck. I found the other two books often put with it, On Being A Christian and Eternal Life equally rigorously argued, always fair in presenting opposing points of view and considering them respectfully, the kind of intellectual work that is so rare outside of serious theology, these days.
His controversial investigation of the doctrine of papal infallibility is something I looked into a lot earlier and, oddly, as time went on, it helped me come to terms with the Catholic tradition that, through its long, long history of bad and good, terrible and very good is too valuable to entirely reject. It's despite what, especially, the Popes, Cardinals, Bishops and way too many priests have done that I find any of it credible, none of whom are convincing as infallible, even within the limits that make that terribly constructed doctrine a far rarer thing than most people, including most Catholics believe it to be.
Here is the end of the article I read about his death in.
Those privileged to see Küng say Mass — as this reporter was in Greenwich Village where he preached on the Sonship of God in the late 1980s — saw a man of deep faith who gave as much attention to the words and symbols of the liturgy as he did to composing his books and lectures.
For years he had presided at the 11 a.m. Sunday Mass at St. Johannes Kirche (St. John's Church) in the center of the Tubingen campus. Küng had proposed the Mass for professors.
"I have a real aversion to bad liturgy," he said. "I think it is essential that people feel immediately that the man presiding believes what he says, is committed to this cause, is addressing them and not just performing prayers. The nicest liturgical words and the highest praise of Christ — unless backed by Scripture and understood by the people — are just not useful," he said in Tubingen.
Years later in a final seminar on "Eternal Life" delivered to 20 students and 20 auditing professors at the University of Michigan, Küng focused on the Last Supper. "We see a man facing his death. It's very simple. It's a ceremony in a traditional Jewish context. He takes bread, gives his blessing, breaks it, passes it out," Küng said, extending his arms to those close to him. "He knows it's his last time with them. He says: 'Take. My body. Remember me. This night'."
Students exchanged glances. Person to person. Catholics and Hindus. Moist eyes and silence. A sense of communion filled the seminar room.
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