The White Smoke: One Year On
Next Wednesday marks the first anniversary of the election of I'll never forget the surprise -- shock, really -- that accompanied the announcement from the balcony overlooking St Peter's Square.
Expect a lot of "stock-taking" journalism next week, when media pundits will be grading his first year in office. To kick things off, tomorrow I'm going to interview the radical theologian and ask him to asssess Benedict's first twelve months in the driving seat of Catholic Church.
Küng is one of the most important Catholic theologians of the last entury, and taught alongside Joseph Ratzinger when the pope was a theology professor at the University of Tübingen . Subsequently, Küng was stripped of his authority to teach at Catholic universities, by Pope John Paul, for questioning church teachings. When his former friend and colleague was elected pope last year, he said this:
The election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope is an enormous disappointment for all those who hoped for a reformist and pastoral pope. But we must wait and see, for experience shows that the papacy in the Catholic Church today is such a challenge that it can change anyone: someone who went into the conclave a progressive cardinal can emerge as a conservative pope (Montini - Paul VI). Someone who went into the conclave a conservative cardinal can emerge as a progressive pope (Roncalli - Johannes XXIII). The name Benedict XVI leaves the possibility open for a more moderate policy. Let us therefore give him a chance: as with a president of the US, we should allow a new pope 100 days to learn.
And after 365 days, what will he make of it all?
Comments
Sunday Sequence, 19 November 2006.
I found a marked and significant contrast between the attitudes of
Muslim Americans in Los Angeles at the beginning of the programme
and the attitudes of the four Christian Church leaders later in
the programme. Having introduced the Muslim American perspective
it is a pity there were no representatives of non-Christian faiths in the later discussion.
One Muslim American made the point that denominational differences
between for example Shia and Sunni Islam were man-made and that the best should be seen in both. Another pointed out that being born into the Islamic faith (or any faith) was merely a stepping stone towards spiritual development and understanding.
The Christian leaders appeared variously trapped in their man-made
institutional and doctrinal differences, and protective of archaic
beliefs pertinent to ancient cultures and standards, Old testament
and Judaic/1st century Christian. They seemed unable to whole-
heartedly accept each others' churches as wholly Christian, and
failed to express any present time evolution of the Christian
concept.
Had the breadth of thought and interpretation branded as heresies
not been suppressed, had interpretation of the Trinity/Son of
God/Son of Man concept evolved in parallel with and in the light
of scientific observation and discovery, instead of being locked
into a conservative doctrinal fundamentalism by Constantine's
annexing of the religion and into a conservative scriptural
fundamentalism by the Reformation, we would be in a better
position to handle the ethical questions posed today, for
example:-
Stem cell research, cloning, restorative stem cell implantation,
artificial insemination, contraception, assisted termination of
life, same sex relationships, war, the ecological environment, the
reconciliation of religious differences.
If Christianity's stunted evolution could be freed from the
constraints of institutionalism, pagan dogmatism and
scripturanity, and if people had the spiritual courage to accept
this freedom, we could address these ethical issues more
rationally.
Christianity is a fusion of a trinity of concepts:-
The story of the life and teachings of Jesus (fact or myth) as
portrayed in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The Egypto-Graeco-Roman concept of a resurrected Christ/King
figure as promulgated by Paul.
The esoteric interpretation of those two presented in a Judaic
liturgical setting and expressed in Zoroastrian terminology by
John.
It is John's gospel which gives us a stepping stone and an
authorization towards a personal evolution of the understanding of
the mysteries of existence and of our own place and role on this
planet and in the universe.
The concept of God died upon the Cross. Mankind became free to
come out of the darkness of religion and into the light of reason and
understanding. We became of age and inherited an awesome
responsibility towards each other, towards all life, towards the
planetary environment, and towards the entire universe.
Dennis Golden