Bill Donohue comments on an op-ed by Hans Küng in today’s New York Times:
Yesterday, I took on the unfair reporting by the Times on the pope [click here for my Newsmax piece]. Today, I will address one of Benedict’s most virulent critics, Hans Küng, an embittered ex-Catholic theologian.
Küng says the pope “irritated the Protestant churches, Jews, Muslims, the Indians of Latin America, women, reform-minded theologians and all pro-reform Catholics.” He blames the pope (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger) for covering up the sexual abuse of minors, and cites “Vatileaks” as a problem. He also says the two major scandals of his tenure were giving “recognition” to the “Society of St. Pius X, which is bitterly opposed to the Second Vatican Council, as well as of a Holocaust denier, Bishop Richard Williamson.”
It is true some Protestant churches were angry after the pope welcomed Anglicans into the Church; Küng fails to mention they lobbied hard to join. Jews have warmly embraced the pope, though some were unhappy when the Latin Mass was being promoted. However, as Rabbi Brad Hirschfield recently said, “It is unfair to complain about a text, which has its own parallels in Jewish liturgy….” Yes, there were Muslims who misunderstood the pope’s 2006 speech when he warned against severing the link between faith and reason; rioting and murder followed, unwittingly proving his point. In 2007, the pope didn’t win the plaudits of some Indians in Brazil when he criticized “the utopia of going back to breathe life into the pre-Columbus religions,” but he won points for being honest. Catholic women have embraced the pope, save for those who share the dissident views of the “reformers.”
No one has done a better job of rooting out the homosexual predators than Cardinal Ratzinger, and “Vatileaks” is a joke—every institution has leakers. The Society of St. Pius X has not returned to full communion with the Vatican, and Bishop Williamson has been expelled. In any event, I thought Küng wanted the Vatican to go soft on dissidents.
