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Hans Kung Biography & Facts

Hans Küng (German: [ˈhans ˈkʏŋ]; 19 March 1928 – 6 April 2021) was a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and author. From 1995 he was president of the Foundation for a Global Ethic (Stiftung Weltethos). Küng was ordained a priest in 1954, joined the faculty of the University of Tübingen in 1960, and served as a theological adviser during the Second Vatican Council. In 1978, after he rejected the doctrine of papal infallibility, he was not allowed to continue teaching as a Catholic theologian, but he remained at Tübingen as a professor of ecumenical theology until he retired with the title professor emeritus in 1996. He remained a Catholic priest until his death. He supported the spiritual substance of religion, while questioning traditional dogmatic Christianity. He published Christianity and the world religions: paths of dialogue with Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in 1986, wrote Dying with Dignity together with Walter Jens in 1998, and signed the appeal Church 2011, The Need for a New Beginning. He was awarded honorific doctorates internationally, and received numerous awards including the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 2008. An asteroid is named after him. Life and work Education Küng was born in Sursee, Canton of Lucerne. He was the eldest of seven siblings; his father managed a shoe store. He studied philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained in 1954. He said his first Mass in St. Peter's Basilica preaching to the Swiss guard, many of whom he knew personally. He continued his education in various European institutions, including the Sorbonne and the Institut Catholique de Paris, where he obtained a doctorate in theology in 1957. He then did pastoral work in Lucerne for two years. At the invitation of Karl Barth, he delivered a lecture on the prospects for reform of the Catholic Church—he was very optimistic—just a week before Pope John XXIII announced his plans for a council in January 1959. Career Küng taught for a year at the University of Münster and then, in 1960, he was appointed professor of fundamental theology at the University of Tübingen in Germany. He launched his writing career that same year with The Council, Reform and Reunion in which he outlined much of what became the program of the upcoming council; it proved a bestseller in several countries. In 1962 he was appointed peritus by Pope John XXIII, serving as the youngest (34) expert theological advisor to participants in the Second Vatican Council until its conclusion in 1965. At Küng's instigation, the Catholic faculty at Tübingen appointed another peritus, Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, as professor of dogmatic theology. During a 1963 tour of the United States, Küng gave the lecture "The Church and Freedom" to enthusiastic audiences of more than 25,000 at several universities around the country, but was not allowed to appear at the Catholic University of America. He received the first of many honorary doctorates from the Jesuits' St. Louis University that year, but the school was chastised for not getting Rome's permission to do so. In April 1963, he accepted an invitation to visit John F. Kennedy at the White House, where Kennedy introduced him to a group of politicians saying "this is what I would call a new frontier man of the Catholic Church". Küng's doctoral thesis was published in English in 1964 as Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth. It identified a number of areas of agreement between Barthian and Catholic theologies of justification, concluding that the differences were not fundamental and did not warrant a division in the Church. (The book included a letter from Karl Barth attesting that he agreed with Küng's representation of his theology. Barth however did not agree with Küng's conclusion that the Reformation was an overreaction.) In this book Küng argued that Barth, like Martin Luther, overreacted against the Catholic Church which, despite its imperfections, has been and remains the body of Christ. Veteran newsperson Patricia Lefevere, writing for the National Catholic Reporter, says the Holy Office "opened a secret file (the infamous 399/57i) on Küng shortly after he wrote [this book]". In the late 1960s, he became the first major Catholic theologian since the late 19th century Old Catholic Church schism to publicly reject the doctrine of papal infallibility in his book Infallible? An Inquiry (1971). It was published three years after the Vatican had first asked Küng to address accusations against his earlier volume, The Church. After the publication of Infallible, Vatican officials requested he appear in Rome to answer charges. Küng stood his ground, demanding to see the file the church had amassed and to speak with whoever was evaluating his work. But Küng had also criticized celibacy, wanted to open the clergy and the diaconate to women, called the ban on dispensations for priests who wanted to leave the priesthood "a violation of human rights", and had written that current Catholic practices "contradicted the Gospel and ancient Catholic tradition and ought to be abolished". On 18 December 1979, he was stripped of his license to teach as a Catholic theologian. Sixty American and Canadian theologians protested the Vatican action and contradicted the Vatican's ruling by saying: "We publicly affirm our recognition that he is indeed a Roman Catholic theologian." A thousand students at Tübingen held a candlelight vigil in protest. Küng later described the Vatican's ruling as "my personal experience of the Inquisition". Lefevere writes that: In Disputed Truth, [the second] of his three volumes of memoirs, Küng spent 80 pages reviewing charges against him — secret meetings by German bishops and Vatican officials outside of Germany, betrayal by seven of his 11 Tübingen colleagues, and a near physical and emotional breakdown caused by exhaustion from his efforts to answer Vatican accusations while preserving his place in a state university. He remained a priest. Since he could no longer teach on Tübingen's Catholic faculty, the university removed the Institute for Ecumenical Research, which Küng had founded and had headed since the 1960s, along with his professorship, outside of that faculty's jurisdiction. Küng continued to teach as a tenured professor of ecumenical theology until his retirement in 1996. While a guest professor at the University of Chicago for three months in 1981, he was invited to only one Catholic institution, the University of Notre Dame. He appeared on the Phil Donahue Show. In October 1986, he participated in the Third Buddhist–Christian Theological Encounter held at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. Küng said his inter-faith studies "solidified his own roots in a living faith in Christ" which he said lasted his entire career. "Indeed, Küng long held that steadfastness in one's own faith and a capacity for dialogue with those of another belief are complementary virtues". In the early .... Discover the Hans Kung popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Hans Kung books.