Hans Kung Quotes

Hundreds of millions of human beings on our planet increasingly suffer from unemployment, poverty, hunger, and the destruction of their families.

In the event that my illness worsens, I want to have a guarantee that I can die in a dignified manner. Nowhere in the bible does it say that a person has to stick it out to the decreed end. No one tells us what "decreed" means.

However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.

That is the Roman way: to give favors to the favorites.

And a third thing is the understanding of the Church as a community, a communion which is just a hierarchy but the people of God, whose servants are the priests and bishops.

It is an absolutely unique success of the church community to have introduced such an epoch-making change, in just a few years, without having a serious division.

I am firmly convinced that there is life after death, not in a primitive sense but as the entry of my completely finite person into God's infinity, as a transition into another reality beyond the dimension of space and time that pure reason can neither affirm nor deny.

I'm not saying goodbye to life because I'm a misanthropist or disdain this life, but because, for other reasons, it's time to move on.

Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a Church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command.

There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.

After two world wars, the collapse of fascism, nazism, communism and colonialism and the end of the cold war, humanity has entered a new phase of its history.

Time and again we see leaders and members of religions incite aggression, fanaticism, hate, and xenophobia - even inspire and legitimate violent and bloody conflicts.

But I have to add - and this answers your other question - this catholicity in time and in space is only meaningful for me if there is, at the same time, a concentration on the Gospel.

If priests were allowed to marry, if this would be an optional thing, and if he could have wife and children, he would certainly have less temptation to satisfy certain sexual impulses with minors.

Even manifestly senseless suffering and death can have a meaning, can acquire a meaning. a hidden meaning.

The face he showed in Jesus is really his true and single face.

The Epistle to the Romans is an extremely important synthesis of the whole theology of St. Paul.

There will be peace on earth when there is peace among the world religions.

We are conscious that religions cannot solve the economic, political and social problems of this earth.

To be no more than scholarly reflection on its object from one particular standpoint, which is anyway one legitimate standpoint among others.

It considers this Jesus as ultimately decisive, definitive, archetypal for man in these various dimensions of his.

We should think about whether canonizations, which are an invention of the Middle Ages, still make sense today.

I don't cling to earthly life because I believe in eternal life. That's the big distinction between my point of view and a purely secular position.

God's love does not protect us from suffering. God's love protects us in the midst of suffering.

If you cannot see that divinity includes male and female characteristics and at the same time transcends them, you have bad consequences. Rome and Cardinal O'Connor base the exclusion of women priests on the idea that God is the Father and Jesus is His Son, there were only male disciples, etc. They are defending a patriarchal Church with a patriarchal God. We must fight the patriarchal misunderstanding of God.

A human person is infinitely precious and must be unconditionally protected.

Humanity today possesses sufficient economic, cultural and spiritual resources to introduce a better global order.

In the last resort, a love of God without love of humanity is no love at all.

Does not simply contain God's word: it becomes God's word for anyone who submits trustfully and in faith to its testimony.

For many people, the pope is still, to a certain extent, a positive role model and a moral force, although others feel that this aspect has suffered greatly.

That means that every human being - without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language, religion, political view, or national or social origin - possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.

The Pope would have an easier job than the President of the United States in adopting a change of course. He has no Congress alongside him as a legislative body nor a Supreme Court as a judiciary. He is absolute head of government, legislator and supreme judge in the church. If he wanted to, he could authorize contraception over night, permit the marriage of priests, make possible the ordination of women and allow eucharistic fellowship with this Protestant churches. What would a Pope do who acted in the spirit of Obama?

Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals, including war.

We are convinced of the fundamental unity of the human family.

As a matter of fact, you have deficiencies in all religions, but you have truth in all religions.