When Hans Küng appeared at the Roman Institute and yet not there

In November 1962, a few weeks after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, at which he was present, the Swiss priest Hans Küng gave a Görres lecture at the Roman Institute on the subject: "Early Catholicism in the New Testament as a Controversial Theological Problem", which he published in the Tübinger Theologischen Quartalschrift (1962, 385-424).

In a footnote he points out that he held this paper both at the Roman Institute and - as a former Germanicist - at the Germanicum. However, he was not at the Campo Santo Teutonico. For in May 1962, the demolition of the so-called Damenstift or Ladies' Wing, in which the lecture hall was located, began. Instead, during the construction work, the Görres lectures were held in the Anima ballroom near the Piazza Navona (Annual Report of the Görres Society 1962, 52). So it was there that Küng spoke. 

The contribution is interesting insofar as Küng tries to take the Protestant interpretation scheme "early Catholicism", which is actually directed against the Catholic Church, and make it Catholic through an artifice. He says that, as Protestant exegesis admits, early Catholicism is ultimately already found in the New Testament. Thus it is in accordance with Scripture. Küng shares Käsemann's thesis, which is still widely held today, that all denominations can refer to the New Testament and that only all denominations together represent the Catholic Church.

Görres-Lectures since 1975

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Category: From the institute