Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Doktor.

Swiss theologian Hans Küng fights his irrelevancy – in vain.

Folks, this according to CathNewsUSA:

Speaking during the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne, Australia, Swiss theologian Fr Hans Kung said the Church needs another Vatican council to move reforms forward.

“A third council would take up the justified concerns that were not fulfilled in the last council. It was forbidden to speak about celibacy; we did not discuss divorce though dozens of millions of Catholics are in this situation; and we did not discuss women’s issues like conception,” Fr Kung, who was involved in Vatican II, said, The Age reports.

He said another global council would not happen because the Vatican was afraid. Instead, it was trying to restore the pre-Vatican II church but was encountering strong resistance, not just from the grassroots but from bishops, according to The Age report.

“Already the successor of this Pope will have to face the situation that churches are more and more empty, and parishes are without pastors, and communities are dissolving,” he is cited saying.

Commentary. Professor Küng, – forget the appellative “father” – despite a couple of works he authored that I consider worthwhile (“On Being a Christian” & “Does God Exist?”) has never been part of the solution for the Catholic Church, but a source of its many problems. The churches – mostly in Europe, I might add – may be mostly empty, but this is not due principally to the persistence of the “traditionalism” Herr Professor so much abhors, but to the secularization and religious indifference he has made his standards.

Like the mock worship services in honor of the Almighty Arkleseizure seen in the movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Küng’s “reforms” have led, where adopted, to a sentimental, subjective religion void of objective, intellectual content, in which absurdity is embraced both as a means and as an end; where “global ethical principles” substitute Christian morality, and where the ultimate objective of the church is self-worship instead of God-worship.

It’s unsurprising to me that the churches where these principles of Küngian “reform” are practiced have become empty. Like the above mentioned movie scene, these “reforms” lead to a kind of repellent vacuity, listlessness, excessive celebration oneself and ultimately, to the negation of God or at least to his irrelevancy. People instinctively reject this kind of religion, hence, the empty churches.

The Church, as envisioned by Dr. Küng, is but a projection of his very healthy ego. One’s intellect may grow under Dr. Küng’s longwinded explications but in the end, one doesn't become a better Catholic because of him.

Frankly, I think Dr. Küng should enjoy his retirement. No one listens to him any more. Those who did have no further use for his pontifications, having become pontifs themselves in their own right; those of us who didn’t are busy rebuilding or refurbishing what he sought to destroy, tear down, and deface.

Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Doktor.