By Jose Kavi
New Delhi: Jesuit Father Michael Amaladoss, a renowned Asian theologian, on April 7 hailed Hans Kung as “a champion of Collegiality in the Church and Dialogue between religions and cultures.”
Hans Küng, an influential and controversial Swiss theologian, died on April 6 at his home in Tübingen, southwest Germany. He was 93.
In a condolence message shared with Matters India, Father Amaladoss termed as “sad” the death of Kung, who was “certainly one of the great post-Vatican II theologians.”
The 84-year-old Indian priest, a highly regarded expert on interreligious dialogue and Christology, says the Swiss theologian had “a big following in the Third-world Churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America, because he was saying things that we would hesitate to say because of our circumstances.”
Father Kung got into “bad books of the Vatican because of his views on papal primacy,” says Father Amaladoss, who had dealt with ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and issues concerning the inculturation of the faith as one of the four general assistants to the Jesuit superior genera Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach.
Although he has not met Kung personally, Father Amaladoss says he has admired the Swiss theologian’s “writings, his progressive thinking and his challenging the Church administrative structures.”
The Indian theologian too had faced Vatican investigation in 2014 for allegedly espousing unorthodox beliefs, raising new questions about whether Pope Francis — the first Jesuit pope — was in fact moving the Catholic Church in a new direction.
Father Kung, the Indian theologian says, was one of the representatives of the progressive wing in the Church in the area of theology. “He has contributed much to Post-Vatican II theology.”
“He has done his good work and has gone to the Lord. He can continue to support those who are busy with reforming the Church. Pope Francis gives us hope. We can only thank God for the gift of Hans Kung to the Church in the Post Vatican period for challenging all of us by his reflections,” added Father Amaladoss, who now resides at the Institute of Dialogue with Cultures and Religions, attached to Chennai’s Loyola College.
They have a long way to go. Theologians are yet to do justice to their enormous potential. Long live the memory of the path-breaking contributions of the late Hans Küng.
Interestingly both Kung and Ratzinger (now Emeritus Pope Benedict) were contemporaries during the Vatican II debates, but on opposite sides of the fence. I found Kung’s observations on papal infallibility very realistic.
Sadly today’s generation has taken the great changes wrought by Vatican II for granted. They have adopted only the cosmetic changes as in the liturgy and dress, minus the deeper attitudinal changes.