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<div class="">February 27, 2013</div>
<h1>A Vatican Spring?</h1>
<h6 class="">By
<span><span>HANS KÜNG</span></span></h6>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TGTG]" title="Link to 1st paragraph">¶</a></span>
TÜBINGEN, Germany </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TASWtr]" title="Link to 2nd paragraph">¶</a></span>
THE Arab Spring has shaken a whole series of autocratic regimes. With the resignation of <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/benedict_xvi/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Benedict XVI." class="">Pope Benedict XVI</a>, might not something like that be possible in the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/roman_catholic_church/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the Roman Catholic Church." class="">Roman Catholic Church</a> as well — a Vatican Spring? </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[OctISA]" title="Link to 3rd paragraph">¶</a></span>
Of course, the system of the Catholic Church doesn’t resemble Tunisia or
Egypt so much as an absolute monarchy like Saudi Arabia. In both places
there are no genuine reforms, just minor concessions. In both,
tradition is invoked to oppose reform. In Saudi Arabia tradition goes
back only two centuries; in the case of the papacy, 20 centuries.
</p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[YitYit]" title="Link to 4th paragraph">¶</a></span>
Yet is that tradition true? In fact, the church got along for a
millennium without a monarchist-absolutist papacy of the kind we’re
familiar with today. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[IwnIwn]" title="Link to 5th paragraph">¶</a></span>
It was not until the 11th century that a “revolution from above,” the
“Gregorian Reform” started by Pope Gregory VII, left us with the three
enduring features of the Roman system: a centralist-absolutist papacy,
compulsory clericalism and the obligation of celibacy for priests and
other secular clergy. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TeoEtS]" title="Link to 6th paragraph">¶</a></span>
The efforts of the reform councils in the 15th century, the reformers in
the 16th century, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in the
17th and 18th centuries and the liberalism of the 19th century met with
only partial success. Even the Second Vatican Council, from 1962 to
1965, while addressing many concerns of the reformers and modern
critics, was thwarted by the power of the Curia, the church’s governing
body, and managed to implement only some of the demanded changes.
</p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TtdTtd]" title="Link to 7th paragraph">¶</a></span>
To this day the Curia, which in its current form is likewise a product
of the 11th century, is the chief obstacle to any thorough reform of the
Catholic Church, to any honest ecumenical understanding with the other
Christian churches and world religions, and to any critical,
constructive attitude toward the modern world. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[UttUtt]" title="Link to 8th paragraph">¶</a></span>
Under the two most recent popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, there
has been a fatal return to the church’s old monarchical habits. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[IioFyt]" title="Link to 9th paragraph">¶</a></span>
In 2005, in one of Benedict’s few bold actions, he held an amicable
four-hour conversation with me at his summer residence in Castel
Gandolfo in Rome. I had been his colleague at the University of Tübingen
and also his harshest critic. For 22 years, thanks to the revocation of
my ecclesiastical teaching license for having criticized papal
infallibility, we hadn’t had the slightest private contact. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[BtmBtm]" title="Link to 10th paragraph">¶</a></span>
Before the meeting, we decided to set aside our differences and discuss
topics on which we might find agreement: the positive relationship
between Christian faith and science, the dialogue among religions and
civilizations, and the ethical consensus across faiths and ideologies.
</p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[FmaHit]" title="Link to 11th paragraph">¶</a></span>
For me, and indeed for the whole Catholic world, the meeting was a sign
of hope. But sadly Benedict’s pontificate was marked by breakdowns and
bad decisions. He irritated the Protestant churches, Jews, Muslims, the
Indians of Latin America, women, reform-minded theologians and all
pro-reform Catholics. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TmsTms]" title="Link to 12th paragraph">¶</a></span>
The major scandals during his papacy are known: there was Benedict’s
recognition of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s arch-conservative Society of
St. Pius X, which is bitterly opposed to the Second Vatican Council, as
well as of a Holocaust denier, Bishop Richard Williamson. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TwtAtw]" title="Link to 13th paragraph">¶</a></span>
There was the widespread sexual abuse of children and youths by
clergymen, which the pope was largely responsible for covering up when
he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. And there was the “Vatileaks” affair,
which revealed a horrendous amount of intrigue, power struggles,
corruption and sexual lapses in the Curia, and which seems to be a main
reason Benedict has decided to resign. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TfpAnt]" title="Link to 14th paragraph">¶</a></span>
This first papal resignation in nearly 600 years makes clear the
fundamental crisis that has long been looming over a coldly ossified
church. And now the whole world is asking: might the next pope, despite
everything, inaugurate a new spring for the Catholic Church? </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TnwThb]" title="Link to 15th paragraph">¶</a></span>
There’s no way to ignore the church’s desperate needs. There is a
catastrophic shortage of priests, in Europe and in Latin America and
Africa. Huge numbers of people have left the church or gone into
“internal emigration,” especially in the industrialized countries. There
has been an unmistakable loss of respect for bishops and priests,
alienation, particularly on the part of younger women, and a failure to
integrate young people into the church. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[OsbBtf]" title="Link to 16th paragraph">¶</a></span>
One shouldn’t be misled by the media hype of grandly staged papal mass
events or by the wild applause of conservative Catholic youth groups.
Behind the facade, the whole house is crumbling. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[ItdApw]" title="Link to 17th paragraph">¶</a></span>
In this dramatic situation the church needs a pope who’s not living
intellectually in the Middle Ages, who doesn’t champion any kind of
medieval theology, liturgy or church constitution. It needs a pope who
is open to the concerns of the Reformation, to modernity. A pope who
stands up for the freedom of the church in the world not just by giving
sermons but by fighting with words and deeds for freedom and human
rights within the church, for theologians, for women, for all Catholics
who want to speak the truth openly. A pope who no longer forces the
bishops to toe a reactionary party line, who puts into practice an
appropriate democracy in the church, one shaped on the model of
primitive Christianity. A pope who doesn’t let himself be influenced by a
Vatican-based “shadow pope” like Benedict and his loyal followers.
</p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[WtnTwt]" title="Link to 18th paragraph">¶</a></span>
Where the new pope comes from should not play a crucial role. The
College of Cardinals must simply elect the best man. Unfortunately,
since the time of Pope John Paul II, a questionnaire has been used to
make all bishops follow official Roman Catholic doctrine on
controversial issues, a process sealed by a vow of unconditional
obedience to the pope. That’s why there have so far been no public
dissenters among the bishops. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[YtCSfw]" title="Link to 19th paragraph">¶</a></span>
Yet the Catholic hierarchy has been warned of the gap between itself and
lay people on important reform questions. A recent poll in Germany
shows 85 percent of Catholics in favor of letting priests marry, 79
percent in favor of letting divorced persons remarry in church and 75
percent in favor of ordaining women. Similar figures would most likely
turn up in many other countries. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[MwgMwg]" title="Link to 20th paragraph">¶</a></span>
Might we get a cardinal or bishop who doesn’t simply want to continue in
the same old rut? Someone who, first, knows how deep the church’s
crisis goes and, second, knows paths that lead out of it? </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[TqmTqm]" title="Link to 21st paragraph">¶</a></span>
These questions must be openly discussed before and during the conclave,
without the cardinals being muzzled, as they were at the last conclave,
in 2005, to keep them in line. </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[AtlMtb]" title="Link to 22nd paragraph">¶</a></span>
As the last active theologian to have participated in the Second Vatican
Council (along with Benedict), I wonder whether there might not be, at
the beginning of the conclave, as there was at the beginning of the
council, a group of brave cardinals who could tackle the Roman Catholic
hard-liners head-on and demand a candidate who is ready to venture in
new directions. Might this be brought about by a new reforming council
or, better yet, a representative assembly of bishops, priests and lay
people? </p>
<p><span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[ItnItn]" title="Link to 23rd paragraph">¶</a></span>
If the next conclave were to elect a pope who goes down the same old
road, the church will never experience a new spring, but fall into a new
ice age and run the danger of shrinking into an increasingly irrelevant
sect. </p>
<span class=""><a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/a-vatican-spring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130228&pagewanted=print#p[HKiHKi]" title="Link to 24th paragraph">¶</a></span> <a title="Global Ethic Center" href="http://www.weltethos.org/data-en/c-10-stiftung/10a-definition.php">Hans Küng</a><br>
<br></div>From: <i>The New York Times</i><br clear="all"><div><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br>
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