There’s an interesting controversy in play in Germany with Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne crticizing Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz, the president of the German bishops’ conference, for inviting dissident theologians to address a major conference last month.
Cardinal Meisner accused Lehmann of liberalism and excessive doctrinal tolerance, which he claims was manifested at the conference in Ulm. Meisner is forming a group of conservative priests and lay people together to denounce liberalism in the German Church.
Among the objectionable speakers were Eugen Drewermann, who had been suspended from the priesthood in 1992 for his heterodox views; Bishop Jacques Gaillot, removed from his diocese in France in 1995 for heterodoxy, a very unusual move for the Vatican; and Hans Kung, whose permission to teach as a Catholic theologian was revoked in 1979. Cardinal Meisner asked: “Does unorthodoxy predestine a person to be invited to the Katholikentag?”
“One of the criticisms of the US bishops during the Scandal was that none of them were willing to criticize their fellows for their misdeeds, even those who were forced to resign for personal sins against chastity.”
Correct, if personal sins against chastity mean homomolesting teenage boys…
“Itbelieves that Drewermann is basically Catholic, even though he expresses many doctrines in new and liberating ways. Meisner disagrees and feels that Drewermann departs too much from the common language of the tradition. Drewermann is someone who is read more and more across the globe and those who defend orthodoxy really need to be prepared to know what he actually says.