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1. Hans Kung seems to be going out of his way to be offensive these days. In Feb. in another interview he took a cheap shot at the Pope which drew a stern rebuke from Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

   Posted By: Nathan Socci

2. It always astonishes me (and I speak from personal observation) how people who hate the Church become more and more inured in their hatred as old age progresses and death approaches.
   I'm sure God gives them the grace of final repentance, but how many of the accept it?

   Posted By: Lance Eccles

3. Lance Eccles; I am puzzled by your use of the word "hate". I would have thought that the fact that Hans Kung continues to engage with the Church is proof of his love. If he did not care, he would stop engaging.
   It seems that some people on this board believe that the only way to avoid "hating" the Church is to agree with everything the Church and her agents say and do without question. Not a very healthy state of affairs, I would think.

   Posted By: exa

4. The movement across to Rome by Anglo- Catholics has nothing to do with power....nor even with religion.
   These are Anglicans who've had no problems with the tenets & orders of their own religion for centuries....until (from their own mouths) the advent of women priests in their midst. Nothing to do with their religion but to its administration & management.
   These people are ultra-conservative &, as such, could not deal with what to them is a major change.
   It's hard-wired into their personalities.
   Note how they're negotiating with Rome so that familiar elements in their current rubrics (like texts used) will change as minimally as possible.
   Once again, nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with personality.
   If Rome were to give each one of the numbers wanting to come over to Rome, a standardised test of personality. Guess what you'd find. They'd all score very low in the extent to which they'd be open to change. Nobody in their right mind would 'employ' as clergy or whatever, a large group of people who score on an extreme end of a personality trait.
   It's an exercise in lack of judgment....not power. And it has nothing to do with faith or religion.
   We live in an age where there's a scientifically sound & expanding knowledge base about human behaviour.
   The Church should be using that.

   Posted By: Marie H

5. Kung knows the Church and the Vatican organisation better than most. It is strange how critics such as Bishop Robinson, even Cardinal Martini, are attacked by the Roman powerbrokers. Kung is not offensive, but expresses his opinion and has always sought dialogue. He loves the teachings of Christ and is still a Catholic priest!

   Posted By: Peter Meury

6. Hans Kung is yesterday's news, a leader of the failed dissenting generation that has only wrought destruction throughout the Church. His latest criticisms signify his sour grapes for the fact that the Church is not being remade into his image, but rather Pope Benedict's. As for Marie H, your comments are just offensive psycho-babble, insinuating that anyone who holds firm in matters of faith or morals have some sort of personality disorder. Quite the opposite, it is the dissenters with their pride, arrogance and rebellion who have the problems.

   Posted By: Michael Bernard

7. Marie H: And how much of your response to the gracious gesture to the sundered brethren in the Anglicans is to do with YOUR personality.
   There are many rites in the Church, and indeed there were once upon a time more, and more 'uses' of the Western rites.
   I trust that your appeal to the universality of the rubrics of the Roman rite means that you applaud and embrance the ACTUAL adherence to those rubrics in particular situations. My own experience suggests to me that many Australian Catholic pastors and faithful are overly attached to the notion of their own creation of an 'Australian Church' liturgical 'identity', mostly created by 'butcher's paper' exercises. The outcome is normally ignorance, ignoring and denigration of the rubrics and hence good order in Divine worship.
   The Anglicans on the other hand wish to retain their long liturgical traditions, which are grounded in the Sarum use from well before Henry VIII begat the schism and Cranmer formalised the heresy.
   As for Kung, one of the marks of the work of the Spirit is docility. He does not seem to display it in any significant measure.

   Posted By: Peter

8. Hans Kung has a breadth of knowledge that far surpasses most of his critics.
   His books are breath-taking in their scope and depth.
   I suspect many on this discussion board would do themselves a great service by reading this great thinker's works.
   He takes nothing for granted other than the text of the scriptures and uses history to discern what is authentic about Christianity and what are historical and (oft-times) destructive accretions to the faith.
   Hans Kung has been likened to the Erasmus of the 20th century.

   Posted By: Elias Nasser

9. Exa: I agree that one does not have to agree with everything the "agents" (leaders?) of the Church do. Many bishops, priests, and even popes have done dreadful things.
   Nevertheless, one must agree with everything the Church teaches.
   I realise that there are many within the Church who oppose its teachings. They have learnt from the unsuccessful experiment of the Reformation, and are attempting to subvert the Church from within.

   Posted By: Lance Eccles

10. And then I fell in love
    With the most wonderful boy in the world,
    We'd take long walks by the river
    Or just sit for hours gazing into each others eyes,
    We were so very much in love.
    And then one day
    he went away
    And I thought I'd die,
    but I didn't,
    And when I didn't
    I said to myself
    Is that all there is to love?
    Is that all there is?
    
    Polly Jean asks the right question in her song. Hopefully the Holy Spirit in Her wisdom accepts everyone, even people who do not accept the divinity of Christ,and those hardwired to Ancient Rituals.The most dysfunctional make the greatest saints. Remember what was written about St Francis....'Hark hark the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town.' Attempted reconciliation with everyone is a mark of a catholic church.

    Posted By: Lewis P Buckingham

11. Marie H: I think the charitable assumption would be that they didn't "have problems with the tenets & orders of their own religion for centuries" because they weren't around for centuries. And as it has been explained over and over again, the introduction of women priests, like the Gorham judgement, is not a mere administrative change: It is a statement about Christianity and what it entails, and people are entitled to agree or disagree. By the way, Anglo-Catholics as such have been fighting a losing battle for preserving the Catholic element within the Anglican Communion since the Oxford Movement began. This is not unthinking, or rigid, or instinctual conservatism. (And indeed, as several commentators have pointed out, there are numerous options available without turning to Rome for 'disaffected' Anglicans.)
    As for your diagnosis, I am amazed at your confidence in pronouncing a judgement upon the mental capacities of people whom you have never met, based upon your conjectured results of tests you haven't administered and know nothing about. It is a sign of the weakness of your case.

    Posted By: Adeodatus

12. Hans Kung is also known as the anti-Catholic's favorite Catholic. I don't think that is something that can be applied to Erasmus.

    Posted By: Nathan Socci

13. Whether you like or dislike the personality of the Pope, he is Peter!

    Posted By: david anthony davies

14. Miichal B & Peter: There is a body of knowledge out there about human behaviour, backed by scientific studies, which uses language that is neither 'babble' nor highly emotive.
    In fact, this case can be tested scientifically. Administer to those people standardised testing.
    The Church has an ethical responsibility to select people with well-balanced personalities to work as clergy among lay people & along with fellow clergy.

    Posted By: Marie H

15. The Archbishop of Canterbury does not seem to share Fr Kung's view. You might like to see his response on his official website:
    http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2572

    Posted By: DD

16. To Elias Nasser: Qualities such as "breadth of knowledge" and "great thinker" do not compare to "depth of fidelity" and "great prayer." Humilty, rather than intelligence, is what the Church needs from her scholars. In Pope Benedict, though, we have a shepherd who is gracefully intelligent, humble and prayerful. Thankfully he,and not Hans Kung, is Pope.

    Posted By: Michael Bernard

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