A Letter from a Venezuelan Woman to Dr. Hans Küng

Dr. Küng: I have learned that you harshly criticized the beatification of John Paul II in statements to the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau. You say he was an “intolerant and authoritarian” pontiff who “cannot be considered an example for the faithful of the Catholic Church, because he exercised a teaching authority with which he repressed the human rights of women and theologians.”

On what authority do you say this? In case you did not watch the beatification on television, let me tell you that on that May 1 there were more than a million people from all over the world in Saint Peter’s Square and all the surrounding streets; some of them had also been there when the Pope died and were shouting: “Santo subito.” That was also seen on television. Let me also inform you that on that May 1 there were not only Catholics, but also people of other religions, since if John Paul II was known for anything it was his openness to interreligious dialogue.

It is good to use the world’s media to inform ourselves better about what the great majority of twenty-first-century Catholics do and want. On that May 1, Dr. Küng, what was seen was a vibrant and young Church! There were thousands of priests and religious sisters (a great many of them African and South American), who show that our Church is growing not only in the number of baptized but in vocations of complete self-giving to God. And as if that were not enough, there are now also many lay people who have clearly understood the universal call to holiness and are forming themselves very well, so that they can speak clearly and defend, without fear, our Church, her doctrine and her members from anyone who wants to harm her.

I recently read the book by journalist Aldo Maria Valli, My Dear John Paul II, in which he publishes part of an interview with you, where you say that “John Paul II leaves women in a position of inferiority and lack of freedom because he denies them the possibility of contraception and legal abortion, aligning himself stubbornly against the priesthood of women” (p. 105). Many of us Catholic women know, Dr. Küng, that John Paul II was one of the Popes who most valued and took account of women. In fact, he was the first pontiff to bring lay women to work in the Vatican (among them a Venezuelan woman, I say with pride). And we do not need to be ordained “priestesses” to work for the Church.

I cannot understand how, after you publicly approve of abortion, there are people who can call you a “Catholic theologian,” recommend your books or pay you great honors. Any human being knows, at this point in our history, that abortion is the worst of homicides (legal or not), because it kills a child who cannot defend himself in his mother’s womb. Have you seen the testimony of Dr. Nathanson, who, after filming one of the thousands of abortions he performed, realized what a vile murder it was and devoted himself to traveling the world, asking forgiveness and defending life in the womb?

I ask you, Dr. Küng: why are you so determined to keep attacking John Paul II, a Blessed so dearly loved by millions of Catholics because he gave his whole life in service to the Church and her faithful?

And remember that in Heaven neither intelligence nor books are of any use if they have not been used well. The great Doctor of the Church Saint Thomas Aquinas said that everything he had written (which has no comparison with any other theological work) was NOTHING compared with what God once showed him while he was working on his papers. Human knowledge is Nothing before the infinite wisdom of God and of our Holy Catholic Church. Our Lord Jesus Christ will explain this to you personally when he asks you to give an account of what you did on this earth.