Curran, who remains a priest, was forced to leave a tenured position at Catholic University in Washington in 1986 because he was at odds with the church on contraception, sterilization, homosexuality and divorce. This week, he took issue with what he called the "fundamental presupposition" behind DiNoia's -- and the late pope's -- approach to dissent.
"John Paul II's presupposition was that the church teaches the truth about humankind," Curran said in a telephone interview from Southern Methodist University in Texas, where he is a professor. "But the Catholic tradition accepts that there are different levels of truth, and more significantly, history reminds us that the hierarchical church needs to learn the truth before it can teach it."
A worker installs a new chimney on the Sistine Chapel that will emit white smoke when the 115 cardinals holding a conclave there have chosen a pope.
(Kimimasa Mayama -- Reuters)
|
|
Curran noted that the Catholic Church long accepted slavery, barred the collecting of interest on loans, opposed democracy and battled freedom of conscience, which one 19th-century pope called "the sewer into which all garbage flows."
"John Paul II said slavery is intrinsically evil. If it is intrinsically evil, why did the Roman church not condemn it until the end of the 19th century?" Curran said. "The fact that we have changed our teaching on important things like slavery shows that the hierarchical church is a learner as well as a teacher -- and therefore you cannot be so absolutely certain about your teaching."
John Paul's crackdowns on theologians began with his first foreign trip as pope. In 1979, he traveled to Mexico and reined in the liberation theology movement, which had been organized among the poor and which the pontiff considered to be infected with Marxism. Among the final acts of his pontificate was a notification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the Rev. Roger Haight, a Jesuit priest in New York, could no longer teach theology at a Catholic university because of doctrinal errors in his book "Jesus: Symbol of God."
The exact number of theologians disciplined by the Vatican is uncertain because many cases are handled privately, according to the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America. But he said a figure of more than 100 had been cited by Catholic theologians. "A church that cannot openly discuss issues is a church retreating into an intellectual ghetto," Reese wrote in an editorial called "On the Challenges for the New Pope."
In 1998, John Paul decreed that national bishops' conferences could not issue theological teachings unless they were unanimous or had prior approval from Rome. He encouraged synods, larger gatherings of bishops from several countries, but kept them under tight control. The pope reserved the right to set their agendas and write up the conclusions.
"When you have synods and you ask them to share their concerns but then you tell them there are things they cannot discuss, that is a suppression of thought that undermines the creativity of the whole church," Chittister said.
Jason Berry, a New Orleans journalist and co-author of "Vows of Silence," a 2004 book on sex abuse in the church, said he believed that John Paul's experience in Poland under Nazism and communism led him to "romanticize the priesthood as a chivalrous caste." Even when confronted with mounting evidence of sexual abuse, "the pope who said, 'Be not afraid,' was incapable of a fearless introspection of the priesthood" and shut off debate over celibacy, homosexuality and the priest shortage, he said.
In Berry's view, the epitome of this circle-the-wagons approach was the Vatican's long refusal to investigate sex abuse allegations by nine men, including two priests, against Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the Legion of Christ, a renewal movement in the church. This year, a church prosecutor said the case had been reopened -- years after it was first filed.
As a Catholic, Berry said, he felt great sadness at the death of the pope. But he also said he was dismayed by fawning media coverage that included no mention of the pope's possible flaws. "With all this video hagiography going on, nobody wants to talk about it, but I think we have an obligation to be honest," he said.
Many of John Paul's critics say he was, nevertheless, a great pope. We Are Church, founded in Rome in 1996, issued a statement applauding John Paul's efforts to free Poland and his renunciation of the church's historical anti-Semitism.
Curran said he admired the pope's criticisms of capitalism and excessive individualism, as well as his teachings against war and the death penalty. "I agreed with him on everything except when he talked about church, women or sex," he said.
Kung, a Swiss-born professor at the University of Tubingen, praised John Paul's personal piety and his travels to 130 countries.
"But soon the triumphal appearances will become faded memories, and the speeches promoting human rights in the world will be so many words in the wind," Kung wrote. "Meanwhile, within the church there is a crisis of hope and confidence."
