Author: Hans Küng
Publication: Spiegel Magazine
Date: March 26, 2005
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,348471,00.html
Outwardly Pope John Paul II, who
has been actively involved in battling war and suppression, is a beacon
of hope for those who long for freedom. Internally, however, his anti-reformist
tenure has plunged the Roman Catholic church into an epochal credibility
crisis.
The Catholic church is in dire straits.
The pope is deathly ill and deserves every bit of sympathy he can get.
But the church must live on, and in light of the selection of a new pope,
it will need a diagnosis, an unadorned insider analysis. The therapy will
be discussed later.
Many marvel at the staying power
of this highly fragile, partially paralyzed head of the Roman Catholic
church, a man who, despite all medications, is barely able to speak. He
is treated with a sort of reverence that would never be extended to an
American president or a German chancellor in a similar state. Others feel
put off by a man they see as an obstinate office bearer who, instead of
accepting the Christian path to his own eternity, is using all means at
his disposal to hold on to power in a largely undemocratic system.
Even for many Catholics, this pope
at the end of his physical strength, refusing to relinquish his power,
is the symbol of a fraudulent church that has calcified and become senile
behind its glittering façade.
The festive mood that prevailed
during the Second Vatican Council (1962 to 1965), or Vatican II, has disappeared.
Vatican II's outlook of renewal, ecumenical understanding and a general
opening of the world now seems overcast and the future gloomy. Many have
resigned themselves or even turned away out of frustration from this self-absorbed
hierarchy. As a result, many people are confronted with an impossible set
of alternatives: "play the game or leave the church." New hope will only
begin to take root when church officials in Rome and in the episcopacy
reorient themselves toward the compass of the Gospel.
One of the few glimmers of hope
has been the pope's stance against the Iraq war and war in general. The
role the Polish pope played in helping bring about the collapse of the
Soviet empire is also emphasized, and rightly so. But it's also heavily
exaggerated by papal propagandists. After all, the Soviet regime did not
fail because of the pope (before the arrival of Gorbachev, the pope was
achieving about as little as he is now achieving in China), but instead
imploded because of the Soviet system's inherent economic and social contradictions.
In my view, Karol Wojtyla is not
the greatest, but certainly the most contradictory, pope of the 20th century.
A pope of many great gifts and many wrong decisions! To summarize his tenure
and reduce it to a common denominator: His "foreign policy" demands conversion,
reform and dialogue from the rest of the world. But this is sharply contradicted
by his "domestic policy," which is oriented toward the restoration of the
pre-council status quo, obstructing reform, denying dialogue within the
church, and absolute Roman dominance. This inconsistency is evident in
many areas. While expressly acknowledging the positive sides of this pontificate,
which, incidentally, have received plenty of official emphasis, I would
like to focus on the nine most glaring contradictions:
HUMAN RIGHTS: Outwardly, John Paul
II supports human rights, while inwardly withholding them from bishops,
theologians and especially women.
The Vatican -- once a resolute foe
of human rights, but nowadays all too willing to become involved in European
politics -- has yet to sign the European Council's Declaration of Human
Rights. Far too many canons of the absolutist Roman church law of the Middle
Ages would have to be amended first. The concept of separation of powers,
the bedrock of all modern legal practice, is unknown in the Roman Catholic
church. Due process is an unknown entity in the church. In disputes, one
and the same Vatican agency functions as lawmaker, prosecutor and judge.
Consequences: A servile episcopate
and intolerable legal conditions. Any pastor, theologian or layperson who
enters into a legal dispute with the higher church courts has virtually
no prospects of prevailing.
THE ROLE OF WOMEN: The great worshiper
of the Virgin Mary preaches a noble concept of womanhood, but at the same
time forbids women from practicing birth control and bars them from ordination.
Consequences: There is a rift between
external conformism and internal autonomy of conscience. This results in
bishops who lean towards Rome, alienating themselves from women, as was
the case in the dispute surrounding the issue of abortion counseling (in
1999, the Pope ordered German bishops to close counseling centers that
issued certificates to women that could later be used to get an abortion).
This in turn leads to a growing exodus among those women who have so far
remained faithful to the church.
SEXUAL MORALS: This pope, while
preaching against mass poverty and suffering in the world, makes himself
partially responsible for this suffering as a result of his attitudes toward
birth control and explosive population growth.
During his many trips and in a speech
to the 1994 United Nations Conference on Population and Development in
Cairo, John Paul II declared his opposition to the pill and condoms. As
a result, the pope, more than any other statesman, can be held partly responsible
for uncontrolled population growth in some countries and the spread of
AIDS in Africa.
Consequences: Even in traditionally
Catholic countries like Ireland, Spain and Portugal, the pope's and the
Roman Catholic church's rigorous sexual morals are openly or tacitly rejected.
CELIBACY AMONG PRIESTS: By propagating
the traditional image of the celibate male priest, Karol Wojtyla bears
the principal responsibility for the catastrophic dearth of priests, the
collapse of spiritual welfare in many countries, and the many pedophilia
scandals the church is no longer able to cover up.
Marriage is still forbidden to men
who have agreed to devote their lives to the priesthood. This is only one
example of how this pope, like others before him, is ignoring the teachings
of the bible and the great Catholic tradition of the first millennium,
which did not require office bearers to take a vow of celibacy. If someone,
by virtue of his office, is forced to spend his life without a wife and
children, there is a great risk that healthy integration of sexuality will
fail, which can lead to pedophilic acts, for example.
Consequences: The ranks have been
thinned and there is a lack of new blood in the Catholic church. Soon almost
two-thirds of parishes, both in German-speaking countries and elsewhere,
will be without an ordained pastor and regular celebrations of the Eucharist.
It's a deficiency that even the declining influx of priests from other
countries (1,400 of Germany's priests are from Poland, India and Africa)
and the combining of parishes into "spiritual welfare units," a highly
unpopular trend among the faithful, can no longer hide. The number of newly
ordained priests in Germany dropped from 366 in 1990 to 161 in 2003, and
the average age of active priests today is now above 60.
ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT: The pope likes
to be seen as a spokesman for the ecumenical movement. At the same time,
however, he has weighed heavily on the Vatican's relations with orthodox
and reform churches, and has refused to recognize their ecclesiastical
offices and Communion services.
The pope could heed the advice of
several ecumenical study commissions and follow the practice of many local
pastors by recognizing the offices and Communion services of non-Catholic
churches and permitting Eucharistic hospitality. He could also tone down
the Vatican's excessive, medieval claim to power, in terms of doctrine
and church leadership, vis-à-vis eastern European churches and reform
churches, and could do away with the Vatican's policy of sending Roman-Catholic
bishops to regions dominated by the Russian Orthodox church.
The pope could do these things,
but John Paul II doesn't want to. Instead, he wants to preserve and even
expand the Roman power system. For this reason, he resorts to a pious two-facedness:
Rome's politics of power and prestige are veiled by ecumenical soapbox
speeches and empty gestures.
Consequences: Ecumenical understanding
was blocked after the council, and relations with the Orthodox and Protestant
churches were burdened to an appalling extent. The papacy, like its predecessors
in the 11th and 16th centuries, is proving to be the greatest obstacle
to unity among Christian churches in freedom and diversity.
PERSONNEL POLICY: As a suffragan
bishop and later as archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla took part in the
Second Vatican Council. But as pope, he disregarded the collegiality which
had been agreed to there and instead celebrated the triumph of his papacy
at the cost of the bishops.
With his "internal policies," this
Pope betrayed the council numerous times. Instead of using the conciliatory
program words "Aggiornamento - Dialogue and Collegiality -- ecumenical,"
what's valid now in doctrine and practice is "restoration, lectureship,
obedience and re-Romanization." The criteria for the appointment of a bishop
is not the spirit of the gospel or pastoral open-mindedness, but rather
to be absolutely loyal to the party line in Rome. Before their appointment,
their fundamental conformity is tested based on a curial catalog of questions
and they are sacrally sealed through a personal and unlimited pledge of
obedience to the Pope that is tantamount to an oath to the "Fuehrer."
The Pope's friends among the German-speaking
bishops include Cologne's Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the Bishop of Fulda
Johannes Dyba, who died in 2000, Hans Hermann Groer, who resigned from
his post as Vienna's cardinal in 1995 following allegations that he had
sexually abused pupils years before and the Bishop of St. Poeltin, Kurt
Krenn, who just lost his post after a sex scandal emerged in his priests'
seminary. Those are just the most spectacular mistakes of these pastorally
devastating personnel policies, which have allowed the moral, intellectual
and pastoral level of the episcopate to dangerously slip.
Consequences: A largely mediocre,
ultra-conservative and servile episcopate is possibly the most serious
burden of this overly long pontificate. The masses of cheering Catholics
at the best-staged Pope manifestations should not deceive: Millions have
left the church under this pontificate or they have withdrawn from religious
life in opposition.
CLERICALISM: The Polish pope comes
across as a deeply religious representative of a Christian Europe, but
his triumphant appearances and his reactionary policies unintentionally
promote hostility to the church and even an aversion to Christianity.
In the papal campaign of evangelization,
which centers on a sexual morality that is out of step with the times,
women, in particular, who do not share the Vatican's position on controversial
issues like birth control, abortion, divorce and artificial insemination
are disparaged as promoters of a "culture of death." As a result of its
interventions -- in Germany, for example, where it sought to influence
politicians and the episcopacy in the dispute surrounding the issue of
abortion counseling -- the Roman Curia creates the impression that it has
little respect for the legal separation of church and state. Indeed, the
Vatican (using the European People's Party as its mouthpiece) is also trying
to exert pressure on the European Parliament by calling for the appointment
of experts, in issues relating to abortion legislation, for example, who
are especially loyal to Rome. Instead of entering the social mainstream
everywhere by supporting reasonable solutions, the Roman Curia, through
its proclamations and secret agitation (through nuntiatures, bishops' conferences
and "friends"), is in fact fueling the polarization between the pro-life
and pro-choice movements, between moralists and libertines.
Consequences: Rome's clericalist
policy merely strengthens the position of dogmatic anti-clericalists and
fundamentalist atheists. It also creates suspicion among believers that
religion could be being misused for political ends.
NEW BLOOD IN THE CHURCH: As a charismatic
communicator and media star, this pope is especially effective among young
people, even as he grows older. But he achieves this by drawing in large
part on the conservative "new movements" of Italian origin, the "Opus Dei"
movement that originated in Spain, and an uncritical public loyal to the
pope. All of this is symptomatic of the pope's approach to dealing with
the lay public and his inability to converse with his critics.
The major regional and international
youth events sponsored by the new lay movements (Focolare, Comunione e
Liberazione, St. Egidio, Regnum Christi) and supervised by the church hierarchy
attract hundreds of thousands of young people, many of them well-meaning
but far too many uncritical. In times when they lack convincing leadership
figures, these young people are most impressed by a shared "event." The
personal magnetism of "John Paul Superstar" is usually more important than
the content of the pope's speeches, while their effects on parish life
are minimal.
In keeping with his ideal of a uniform
and obedient church, the pope sees the future of the church almost exclusively
in these easily controlled, conservative lay movements. This includes the
Vatican's distancing itself from the Jesuit order, which is oriented toward
the tenets of the council. Preferred by earlier popes, the Jesuits, because
of their intellectual qualities, critical theology and liberal theological
options, are now perceived as spanners in the works of the papal restoration
policy.
Instead, Karol Wojtyla, even during
his tenure as archbishop of Krakow, placed his full confidence in the financially
powerful and influential, but undemocratic and secretive Opus Dei movement,
a group linked to fascist regimes in the past and now especially active
in the world of finance, politics and journalism. In fact, by granting
Opus Dei special legal status, the pope even made the organization exempt
from supervision by the church's bishops.
Consequences: Young people from
church groups and congregations (with the exception of alter servers),
and especially the non-organized "average Catholics," usually stay away
from major youth get-togethers. Catholic youth organizations at odds with
the Vatican are disciplined and starved when local bishops, at Rome's behest,
withhold their funding. The growing role of the archconservative and non-transparent
Opus Dei movement in many institutions has created a climate of uncertainty
and suspicion. Once-critical bishops have cozied up to Opus Dei, while
laypeople who were once involved in the church have withdrawn in resignation.
SINS OF THE PAST: Despite the fact
that in 2000 he forced himself through a public confession of the church's
historical transgressions, John Paul II has drawn almost no practical consequences
from it.
The baroque and bombastic confession
of the church's transgressions, staged with cardinals in St. Peter's Cathedral,
remained vague, non-specific and ambiguous. The pope only asked for forgiveness
for the transgressions of the "sons and daughters" of the church, but not
for those of the "Holy Fathers," those of the "church itself" and those
of the hierarchies present at the event.
The pope never commented on the
Curia's dealings with the Mafia, and in fact contributed more to covering
up than uncovering scandals and criminal behavior. The Vatican has also
been extremely slow to prosecute pedophilia scandals involving Catholic
clergy.
Consequences: The half-hearted papal
confession remained without consequences, producing neither reversals nor
action, only words.
For the Catholic church, this pontificate,
despite its positive aspects, has on the whole proven to be a great disappointment
and, ultimately, a disaster. As a result of his contradictions, this pope
has deeply polarized the church, alienated it from countless people and
plunged it into an epochal crisis -- a structural crisis that, after a
quarter century, is now revealing fatal deficits in terms of development
and a tremendous need for reform.
Contrary to all intentions conveyed
in the Second Vatican Council, the medieval Roman system, a power apparatus
with totalitarian features, was restored through clever and ruthless personnel
and academic policies. Bishops were brought into line, pastors overloaded,
theologians muzzled, the laity deprived of their rights, women discriminated
against, national synods and churchgoers' requests ignored, along with
sex scandals, prohibitions on discussion, liturgical spoon-feeding, a ban
on sermons by lay theologians, incitement to denunciation, prevention of
Holy Communion -- "the world" can hardly be blamed for all of this!!
The upshot is that the Catholic
church has completely lost the enormous credibility it once enjoyed under
the papacy of John XXIII and in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.
If the next pope were to continue
the policies of this pontificate, he would only reinforce an enormous backup
of problems and turn the Catholic church's current structural crisis into
a hopeless situation. Instead, a new pope must decide in favor of a change
in course and inspire the church to embark on new paths -- in the spirit
of John XXIII and in keeping with the impetus for reform brought about
by the Second Vatican Council.