I suspect Fr. Kung was getting nervous about not reading his name in the paper for a while, and so he staged another little nutty for the press.
German theologian urges bishops to pressure pope
By JUERGEN BAETZ (AP) – 3 hours ago
BERLIN — Dissident theologian Hans Kueng urged bishops on Thursday to push for reforms in the Roman Catholic in defiance of Pope Benedict XVI. [True to form. I am surprised to see "dissident"… unless in the AP’s dictionary "dissident" is a good thing.]
Kueng, an 82-year-old former colleague and friend of the pontiff, said the church was now in its deepest crisis since the Protestant Reformation after recent revelations of sexual abuse by clergy caused an erosion of trust. [Could the crisis have been exacerbated by people such as… say… Hans Kung?]
In an editorial published Thursday in daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and other publications, Kueng said bishops should call for a new synod to discuss reforms. [He is not talking about a synod. He is talking about a Council.]
Kueng accused pope of not living up "to the great challenges of our time," saying on the fifth anniversary of Benedict’s election to the papacy that his traditionalist approach had failed. [Kung has ever thought that Vatican II didn’t create nearly as deep a break with the past as was needed (to his mind).]
Bishops should not be "actors without voice or rights," Kueng said, arguing that it was legitimate for them to press Roman authorities for reforms if the pope blocked their efforts. [Blocking efforts to do what, exactly?]
"It may not be silenced [That’s not an awkward translation…] that the worldwide system of covering-up of sexual offenses by clergy men was steered by Cardinal Ratzinger’s Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith," Kueng said in the editorial, which also appeared in the New York Times, La Repubblica and other dailies in France, Spain and Switzerland. [Kung – unless he is simply senile – is purposely distorting the truth. He is too intelligent not to know what he is saying isn’t true.]
Germany’s justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, met Thursday with the head of the German Bishops Conference, Robert Zollitsch — two months after she had irked him [No translation problems there! Nosirree!] by saying she believed the church was not truly interested in clearing up all sexual abuse cases.
The justice minister has spoken of a "wall of silence" surrounding the church. [Impartial zealous advocate for justice. right?]
Some German dioceses have reported big increases this year in the number of people leaving the church. Zollitsch’s Freiburg archdiocese said 2,711 left the church in the southwestern region in March — compared with 1,058 a year earlier. [Are they just dodging the church tax?]
The Wuerzburg diocese in Bavaria said 1,233 left the church there in March — three times the 407 recorded a year earlier. The Munich archdiocese, where Benedict once served as archbishop, said it did not yet have figures for March.
Associated Press Writer Verena Schmitt-Roschmann in Berlin contributed to this report.