Hans Küng: Video conversation — what went wrong with the Church and the way forward... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, October 02, 2011, 23:27 (601 days ago)

Dear all,

One of the keynote speakers at the American Catholic Council we attended back at the end of June was Dr Hans Küng. He didn't appear in person but via an hour-long conversation Dr Anthony Padovano recorded with him almost 12 months earlier. It is a fabulous interview exploring many of the issues that come up for discussion here on Catholica. Hopefully publishing this review on Catholica and on YouTube might stimulate further interest in Dr Küng and in the American Catholic Council.

I've selected a number of segments from the interview which address the related questions of why institutional Catholicism is in so many crises today — catastrophically falling participation rates, lack of priests, lack of vocations in religious orders, amalgamation and closure of parishes, not to mention the sexual abuse and financial scandals — and what might be done about it/how the future might pan out.

This first segment is from the beginning of the video and introduces Dr Küng and takes us up to his response to the first question I was particularly interested in for this review: what went wrong after Vatican II. Before you get to that he expresses some of the reasons for hope in the future. I particularly liked his line: "The Gospel of Jesus Christ is stronger than the hierarchy!"

This second segment comes from a little further along in the conversation where Dr Padovano asks Dr Küng where the Reform movement succeeded and where it had failed. This segment led in to a lengthy segment where Küng discussed his relationship with Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) and disclosed some of the details of his 4 hour conversation with Benedict after he became pope. (He discloses that they didn't really get into any of the "controversial areas" but it was a valuable conversation addressing areas where he and the pope are on common ground.) In this present segment he decribes the Church as a "Potemkin Church" — we have this institution with a magnificent facade but behind the facade things are in crisis with not enough priests, parishes closing, the abuse scandal and so on.

In the third segment I've selected Anthony Padovano asks: how to maintain hope in the face of the 'Berlin Wall' of the institution. Küng emphasises that we are all the church. The Church is not just the bishops and priests. He argues we need to speak up. He argues that one of the problems is that bishops are more concerned with pleasing the Vatican than serving their people. This segment ends with a very brief but poignant moment where Dr Küng almost seems in tears as he is reminded of his own battle with the authorities.

This final, very short section, is an addendum Dr Küng gave to a more lengthy discussion on the search for a new global ethic that might be embraced by all religions and all of humanity in ways that cross the usual religious and other divides in society. It is an excellent summation of the four core ethical/moral beliefs that the great majority of the people in the world would subscribe to.

The interview took place at the residence/office of Dr. Kung in Tubingen on July 17, 2010, and published at the American Catholic Council on Friday evening, 10th June 2011. A pdf of the transcript of the full interview can be found at:
http://americancatholiccouncil.org/files/2011/06/Transcript-of-Kung-Video-Interview-ACC...
The American Catholic Council website contains videos and pdfs of other addresses given at the Council.

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]

Tags:
Hans Kung, Anthony Padovano, American Catholic Council, Vatican II