From NCR:
Fr. Hans Küng, the Swiss theologian, says that he has received a letter from Pope Francis that responds “to my request to give room to a free discussion on the dogma of infallibility.” Küng declined to show the letter to NCR, citing “the confidentiality that I owe to the Pope,” but he says the letter was dated March 20 and sent to him via the nunciature in Berlin shortly after Easter. Küng says the letter shows that “Francis has set no restrictions” on the discussions. Küng also said that he is very encouraged by Francis’ recent apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (‘The Joy of Love’), “I could not have foreseen then quite how much new freedom Francis would open up in his post-synodal exhortation,” Kung wrote in statement released to NCR and other media outlets. “Already in the introduction, he declares, ‘Not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium.'” Küng writes, “This is the new spirit that I have always expected from the magisterium” and makes a discussion of infallibility possible.
Küng notes:
I am fully convinced that in this new spirit a free, impartial and open-ended discussion of the infallibility dogma, this fateful key question of destiny for the Catholic church, will be possible.
Read the full text of Küng’s statement here.
And today we celebrate...