Catholic World News News Feature

Prelate criticizes honorary degree for Hans Küng November 10, 2004

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, Italy, has criticized a state university for awarding an honorary degree to dissident theologian Hans Küng.

While recognizing the right of administrators at the University of Geneva to make their own judgments regarding scholarly credentials, Cardinal Bertone said that it was a mistake to honor Küng for his contributions to ecumenical progress.

Küng, a former theology professor at the University of Tubingen in Germany, is the author of many books about ecclesiology. In the 1970s his persistent questioning of papal infallibility and Church authority drew him into a conflict with the Vatican, and in 1979 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that Küng could no longer be considered a Catholic theologian.

In June of this year, Küng demonstrated that he has not changed his views, during a public debate with a former ally, Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz. During that debate Küng argued against papal supremacy, and said that he favored sharing Communion with other Christian denominations.

Writing in the Genoa archdiocesan newspaper, the cardinal said that Küng's view of the faith transforms Christianity into "an incoherent pluralism, a mixture of elements stripped of any orientation toward the spiritual center which alone can guarantee true Catholicism: a conscious union with the universal magisterium of the Church."