Freedom, Kung, and Curran

A brief response to Richard’s post. He maintains that the Church has not changed its position regarding the nature of freedom. He points to Veritatis Splendor in this regard. We have been down that road before in our thread on conscience and dissent. I do not propose to go there again. If Richard is contending that the Church has not changed its position on religious freedom regarding the use of force by the state, I would be interested to hear how he or others would develop that argument.

Richard argues that Hans Kung and Charles Curran have been “almost unheard of” since their departure from Catholic universities (I am not sure Kung actually was in a Catholic university when the Vatican discredited him, but he was writing as a Catholic). Here I am puzzled by Richard’s comment. Perhaps he means to say that the two are now almost unheard of in conservative or traditional Catholic circles. That is possible though I doubt it. Anything beyond that would be hard to credit. Hans Kung is one of the most widely read theologians in the world. He continues to attract very large audiences wherever he speaks. Try to find a Borders or Barnes and Nobles book store where his books are not present. Charles Curran is not as widely read in the general public, but he also continues to be an extremely prominent theologian and has a distinguished body of scholarship. For a wonderful assessment of that scholarship in a series of essays by other prominent theologians, see James J. Walker, Timothy E. O’Connell & Thomas A. Shannon eds., A Call to Fidelity: On the Moral Theology of Charles E. Curran (Georgetown University Press 2002).

A personal note. I returned to the Church several years ago. Reading Hans Kung’s, Why I am Still a Christian, was an important step along the way. After reading it, I went to a Catholic colleague on the law school faculty and asked him if he had read the book (intending to recommend it). He replied that he had read the book some years ago. That is why, he said, he had returned to the Church. (Neither he or I are attracted to Kung's views on the trinity which are not in that book).

I recognize that traditional Catholics believe that to be a Kungian Catholic or a Curran Catholic is oxymoronic. I laughed the other day when a friend said, “I know that they don’t think I’m a real Catholic, but I am staying until they throw me out.”