Kung Fool

On April 6th of this year, the notorious apostate and infamous theologian who helped usher in the Great Apostasy at Vatican II, Fr. Hans Kung, died at age 93. That he did all he could to destroy Catholicism in the mind and hearts of people is undeniable. What is not well-known is that he not only contemplated suicide for himself, but taught that suicide is morally acceptable under certain circumstances. Convincing someone terminally ill and depressed to kill themselves (and it is acceptable to God) is the easiest way to damn a soul to Hell. They allow despair to blind them to the truth that God is the Author of Life and He decides when a person is to depart this world. By convincing the sick to end their lives against what they know about the sacredness of human life (and they are unable to receive the Last Rites) any who do so will most likely be damned.

 This post will examine the life of this evil man, his perverse and whacky teachings, and have a special focus regarding his suicide advocacy. The teaching of the One True Church on suicide will be examined as well.

Hans Kung: An Enemy of Christ from the Start

Kung was born in 1928 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1954. He earned a doctorate in sacred theology in 1957 at the Catholic Institute of the Sorbonne with his dissertation being on Protestant theologian Karl Barth. Less than a year later, the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office opened a file on him (file 399/57i)  for suspicion of Modernism. Although his thesis was orthodox, it was susceptible to misinterpretation; and Cardinal Ottaviani, as Pro-Prefect of the Holy Office, wasn't convinced that the 29 year old theologian hadn't done so on purpose.

(See, e.g. ncronline.org/news/people/hans-k-ng-celebrated-and-controversial-swiss-theologian-has-died as but one source of his early run in with the Holy Office). Just three years later, he was rehabilitated by Roncalli. 

Sure enough, in 1964 Kung published a more elaborate version of the Barth thesis as well as an English edition, Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth With a Catholic Reflection which was rife with Protestant errors.  At 34, he was the youngest peritus (i.e., theological expert) at Vatican II. Along with his Modernist comrade, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (later "Pope" Benedict XVI), they eschewed clerical garb and chose to wear a suit and tie instead. Kung hated being called "Father" preferring the title "Dr." or even just "Hans Kung" as he hated the idea of a "priesthood" apart from the Protestant notion of the "priesthood of all believers." 

Kung and Ratzinger were on the side of the heretical Rhineland bishops, serving their de facto ringleader, the despicable Joseph Cardinal Frings. They were a constant voice for Modernism, and sabotaged the efforts of the Traditionalists at every turn. My spiritual father, Fr. Gommar A. DePauw, JCD, was a peritus for Cardinal Ottaviani and Bishop Blaise Kurz in their attempt to stop the Modernist takeover. Fr. DePauw told me of how Ratzinger and his allies battled him frequently at the Council, and were largely responsible for the Great Apostasy in pushing through their heretical agenda. So-called "Vaticanologist" Peter Hebblethwaite, a Jesuit who left the priesthood to marry, wrote that all Kung’s proposals at the Second Vatican Council were accepted, some in modified form, in the council’s final documents. (See nytimes.com/2021/04/06/world/europe/hans-kung-dead.html). 

Interestingly, Ratzinger would turn on his former friend in the 1970s when he was "campaigning for pope." To ingratiate himself with Wotyla (John Paul II), he had Kung's ability to teach as a "Catholic" theologian at "Catholic" institutes of higher learning revoked when Kung refused Ratzinger's order as head of the "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith," to change some theological opinions in two books. Ratzinger helped Wotyla seem "conservative" whilst dismantling all that was Catholic from their new sect. Twenty-six years later, he was rewarded by becoming the next  false pope, and he made amends with Kung. Kung was never dismissed as a priest, and losing his theological status in 1979 turned out to mean only that he was moved to a different part of the same German university teaching "ecumenism."  He wrote many densely researched books, and would draw crowds on lecture tours. 

(I remember the first time I asked Fr. DePauw what he thought of Hans Kung. You always knew when Father didn't like someone; the look of utter contempt and disgust on his face was always unmistakable. After getting such a look from him and before he told me all about him, he began by stating, "I gave lectures for free when I was an academic like him. But mine were intelligible. (long pause) And Catholic."). 

Kung's Theology: Anti-Catholic and Ecumenical

• Kung's Goal: A One World Religion within a One World New Global Order

In 1993, Kung drafted the Declaration Towards a Global Ethic for the World Parliament of Religions, which was accepted by 200 leaders of 40 sects. It reads:

No new global order without a new global ethic!

We women and men of various religions and regions of Earth therefore address all people, religious and non-religious. We wish to express the following convictions which we hold in common:

• We all have a responsibility for a better global order

• Our involvement for the sake of human rights, freedom, justice, peace, and the preservation of Earth is absolutely necessary

• Our different religious and cultural traditions must not prevent our common involvement in opposing all forms of inhumanity and working for greater humaneness

• The principles expressed in this Global Ethic can be affirmed by all persons with ethical convictions, whether religiously grounded or not

• As religious and spiritual persons we base our lives on an Ultimate Reality, and draw spiritual power and hope therefrom, in trust, in prayer or meditation, in word or silence. We have a special responsibility for the welfare of all humanity and care for the planet Earth. We do not consider ourselves better than other women and men, but we trust that the ancient wisdom of our religions can point the way for the future

Conspicuously absent from a document written by a valid Catholic priest in good standing with the Vatican II sect is any mention of Christ, His One True Church, or the moral teachings of the Church.  Instead, a "global ethic" intended to usher in a "global order" must be produced by "the ancient wisdom of our religions." The "global ethic" is naturalistic, eschewing any supernatural ends, and mentions "Ultimate Reality," a Masonic "Great Architect of the Universe." 

According to religioustolerance.org, Kung's declaration  ...was signed by 143 respected leaders from all of the world's major faiths, including the Baha'i Faith, Brahmanism, Brahma Kumaris, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous, Interfaith, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American, Neo-Pagan, Sikhism, Taoism, Theosophist, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian. The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions offers it to the world as an initial statement of a group of rules for living on which all of the world's religions can agree.

• Kung denies Infallibility

In his 1970 book Infallible? An inquiry, Kung asked for "open debate" on the topic by (Modernist) theologians. He also eschews scholastic philosophy and theology which developed the dogma.

Reality Check:

Unfortunately these advocates of novelty easily pass from despising scholastic theology to the neglect of and even contempt for the Teaching Authority of the Church itself, which gives such authoritative approval to scholastic theology. This Teaching Authority is represented by them as a hindrance to progress and an obstacle in the way of science. Some non-Catholics consider it as an unjust restraint preventing some more qualified theologians from reforming their subject. And although this sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith - Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition - to be preserved, guarded and interpreted, still the duty that is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly 'to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See,'... (See Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, paragraph # 18, 1950)

• Kung Believes Traditional Sacramental Rites BEFORE Vatican II are Invalid

In 2012, Kung wrote a letter to his friend/enemy Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), asking him not to restore to "full Communion" the four bishops consecrated by Abp. Lefebvre in 1988 because:

The pope would be including in the Church bishops and priests that are definitely invalidly ordained. According to the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI  "Pontificalis Romani recognitio", of July 18, 1968, the ordination of bishops and priests by Archbishop Lefebvre is not only illegal but also invalid. This view is shared among others by a relevant member of the "Doctrinal Commission", Karl Josef Becker, SJ, now a cardinal. (See https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/05/freak-extremes-meet-hans-kung-becomes.html).

Implicit in this statement is a false and invented principle, that when the Church changes a Rite, the previous Rite is no longer valid. It is also a true, yet subtle admission, that there is great discontinuity between the Catholic Church and the Vatican II sect; such that they no longer express the same theology and cannot be one and the same Church.

• In his book The Church (1967), Kung compares believers in the miraculous and approved apparitions to ancient heretics

From the book: As in Montanism, some post-Tridentine visionaries have been dominated by apocalyptic conceptions (prophecies of an imminent end of the world, a great war, an apocalyptic catastrophe, or the conversion of Russia), which causes in the devotees terror and, at the same time, attraction and fascination. This is one of the reasons for their astonishing success... As in Joachimism, there are mystical numbers and anticipated dates: important events have taken place on the 13th day of the month ....As in Joachimism, a new religious congregation is often considered necessary to spread the ideas according to which .... a specific work of piety (a statue, a devotion, a medal) is considered as important as the Word of God witnessed in Scripture. 

(pgs. 282-283)

 Montanism was a second century heresy, and Joachimism refers to the 13th century monks who were fixated on end of the world prophesy.  While no one needs to believe in apparitions and private revelations, and it is not sinful to do so (unless such rejection stems from contempt for Church authority), Kung denigrates Fatima for being a manifestation of the supernatural, condemning such beautiful practices as the Five First Saturdays as some sort of "superstition" and (in typical Protestant fashion) exalting the Bible above all else.

• Kung Honored by Freemasons

According to the May 26, 2007 edition of The Tablet, we read on pg. 39, "The architect of the Global Ethic Foundation, the Swiss theologian Hans Kung, has been awarded the German Freemasons' Culture Prize. Grand Master Jens Oberheide said that the ideal of a common, ethical foundation based on human rights and the demand for freedom, equality, and fraternity that underlay Kung's foundation, was also 'fundamental' for Freemasons. Although the Vatican has rejected Freemasonry, Kung said the award was an encouragement and added, 'Hope...accompanies every new beginning."

Kung: "When the Going Gets Tough...Kill Yourself"

In his 1984 book Eternal Life?: Life After Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and Theological Problem. Kung teaches that people have the right to die with human dignity, and so there are situations where doctor-assisted suicide is morally acceptable. In 1995 the Swiss apostate, working with Walter Jens and others, published A Dignified Dying: A Plea for Personal Responsibility that discussed psychological and religious aspects of terminal illness and reiterates his earlier thoughts. 

In Eternal Life? Kung writes:

No advocate of a more active assisted death [i.e. Assisted Suicide] thinks that the person becomes "nonhuman" or "no longer human" as a result of incurable sickness, senility or definitive unconsciousness. On the contrary, precisely because man is and remains human, he has a right to live a life worthy of a human being and to die with human dignity, a right that may possibly be denied him if he is continually dependent on surgical apparatus and medicaments: that is, when all that is possible is to go on merely vegetating, to sustain a merely vegetative existence. In this light none of the three partial objectives of assisted dying—prolongation of life, diminishing suffering and preservation of freedom—may be made absolute, but must all be brought into harmony with each other.(pg. 169)

In Wojtyla-esque fashion he appeals to "human dignity" as a justifying reason for assisted suicide. He answers the most common objection, that people do not have the right to determine when they die, and it is for God alone to determine when a person's life should end. He does this by appealing to Church teaching on artificial contraception (!) if you can believe it. The sophist apostate theologian claims that not long ago, all forms of artificial birth control were opposed, because of the common belief that only God determines when a person is born (and when they die), and many theologians argued that using birth control was directly murdering a vast number of descendants, because they were prevented from being born. (There is not one approved theologian that taught such nonsense). 

Now, he asserts the reverse is true, artificial birth control is generally accepted because it has finally been acknowledged that God has placed the beginning of life under the control of humanity. (Generally accepted and taught by the Church are two entirely different things. Moreover, the Vatican II sect is still technically against artificial contraception [e.g., Montini's Humanae Vitae]). Kung writes:

At one time many moral theologians interpreted and rejected active, "artificial" birth control as a denial of God's sovereignty over life, until they had to admit that the beginning also of human life had been placed by God under man's responsibility (not at his [sic] arbitrary choice). It is conceivable that the end too of human life has been placed more than hitherto under the responsibility (not at the whim) of man by the same God, who does not want us to shift off onto him [sic] a responsibility that we ourselves should bear? (Ibid, pg. 170).

The Teaching of the Church on Suicide

Suicide is either direct or indirect, according to both the intention and mode. A person who kills himself from knowledge and choice makes the act direct. The mode is direct if what is done tends by its very nature to cause death (e.g., taking a lethal dose of cyanide). Someone who is mentally ill would only kill himself indirectly. The mode is indirect if that which is done tends from its nature to another end, i.e. to struggle with a criminal wielding a gun. It is wrong to assume that all people are mentally ill, and the suicide is only indirect (although one is free to assume a majority may be psychologically disturbed). 

 Direct  suicide is always a mortal sin that deprives the person of ecclesiastical burial unless they were able to give signs of repentance before death (See Canon 1240, section 3). If the person who attempts suicide is unsuccessful, they are subject to various penalties pronounced in Canon 2350, section 2. If it is doubtful that the person killed himself, the doubt is decided in the decedent's favor that he did not, provided there would be no scandal. 

Suicide is a grave sin for three (3) reasons:

1.It is a most grave offense against the rights of God. The act usurps God's authority over life and death. "Thou, O Lord, hast the power of life and death." (Wisdom 16: 13). Human life has intrinsic worth because it comes from God, and God wills the salvation of all. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took on a human nature and died for humanity, to give all a chance to get to Heaven. 

2. It is a grave offense against society. A community has the right to be benefited by the lives of their members. It has a demoralizing effect on those who loved the person. People valuable to society would rashly kill themselves in a fit of depression thinking they are not valuable. Even members of society not able to contribute in any substantial, material way would deprive others of an example of fortitude, or the opportunity to show charity and mercy to the needy. 

3. It is a grave offense against the natural law. You cannot "love thy neighbor as thyself," unless there is love of self (not inordinate). Those who kill themselves to escape pain and miseries, incur the greater evils of death and moral cowardice, to be followed by eternal damnation--the greatest of all evils and suffering.  

(Material above condensed from theologians McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, 2: 117-123). 

According to theologian O'Donnell, there are two kinds of dominion that are inherent in creation. Dominion means authority or power over another. This is how it applies to suicide:

• Absolute Dominion. One is said to have absolute dominion in a substance when the substance in question is essentially subordinated to one's final end and has become the object of one's lawful rights. Hence, a man can have absolute dominion in his own property and livestock. Its final purpose is subordinated to and ordered for man's final end, and man may use it as a mere means to his own purposes, even to the extent of destroying the substance.

• Useful Dominion. Useful dominion is that restricted power or prerogative which a man has in regard to another substance whereby he has the same right to use a thing, but with certain restrictions which are imposed by the higher rights of others. Thus if a man lends me his car or his horse I may lawfully use it, but cannot destroy it for my own purposes because his title to ownership gives him a prior right to the thing.

Dominion in human life. Man can have, at most, only a useful dominion over human life. I may hire another man to work for me and use his labor for my own purposes, but I cannot exercise an absolute dominion in his substance, by destroying it for my own ends and thus relegating him to the position of being a mere means to my own end... Thus when we are dealing with human life---one's own life or the life of another---we are dealing with something in which man can have, at most, only useful dominion. Absolute dominion in human life is an exclusive Divine prerogative; it belongs to God alone. Right order demands that any invasion or diminution of human life be considered in the light of this exclusive Divine prerogative. The doctor must always remember that the lives and the bodies of his patients are not subordinated to himself, as a physician, nor to the State, nor to the science of medicine, nor even to the patient himself. They are subordinated to God alone. (See Morals In Medicine, [1956], pgs. 52-53; Emphasis mine).  

It is not suicide to refuse extraordinary means of preserving life, and palliative care is the best its ever been. For example, in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal, the official reports indicate that the reason more than 90% of those who die from doctor prescribed suicide do so because they are concerned about loss of autonomy and loss of ability to engage in activities making life enjoyable.  Pain concerns are one of the least cited reasons for assisted-suicide requests. (See  Oregon Public Health Division, “Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act – 2014,” Feb. 2, 2015, p. 5). 

From the works of theologians such as Noldin, Connell, Jone, etc. there are three certain general principles:

1. Ordinary means to preserve life must always be used. It seems best defined as those things associated with the basics of life (food, water, rest, clothing, etc.) and what modern medicine can provide. There is never a good reason to starve someone to death. Even in "brain death" or a PVS ("persistent vegetative state"), we cannot know if the person is capable of suffering--suffering we wouldn't want an animal to endure, let alone a human being. 

2. Most of the now commonly available techniques of modern surgery, medicines, and other medicinal practices/devices should be classified as ordinary means of preserving life. 

3. Extraordinary means of preserving life need not be used. Those would seem to include experimental surgery, untested or unproven medicines and the like which cannot be used without prolonged suffering, devastating financial consequences, and offer no substantial chance of recovery.

We must be very careful in what we consider "extraordinary means" of preserving life. In the medical profession, there is the ideal which demands fighting off pain and death until the last possible moment. There is much to be said for that attitude. Many of the great advances in modern medicine, as well as perfection in surgical skill and technique, have been due to what might have frequently been called a "useless prolongation of life/suffering." Modern surgery is only considered an ordinary means of preserving life because of its extensive use in those stages of its development when it was considered an extraordinary means. We must not be too ready to lower that medical ideal, and slow medical progress in the immediate interest of a present case. The future betterment of humanity is also served by attempting "extraordinary means."

Conclusion

Kung is an evil man who, when stricken with Parkinson's Disease and going blind, considered suicide. Did he take the exit that he suggested to others? Of course not. He died at home at age 93. I shudder to think of his most likely sentence at Judgement. He fooled many by helping create the Vatican II sect, posing as the Catholic Church. He tried to fool people to think assisted suicide is moral; perhaps influencing some to take their lives and lose their souls. In 2016, Bergoglio responded to a letter from Kung saying he would "allow for discussions" on "the problem" of infallibility. Infallibility is not a "problem" to discussed, but a dogma to be believed. Some may be fooled into thinking infallibility need not be believed.

Hans Kung wanted a One World Religion, and the Vatican II sect is still working towards it. However, if he thought he could escape God's Judgement, there is no bigger fool than Hans Kung.