Anlässlich der Rücktrittsankündigung von Papst Benedikt XVI. hat der katholische Theologieprofessor Leonard Swidler (geb. 1929) von der Temple-University in Philadelphia (USA) und ehemaliger Kollege von Joseph Ratzinger an der Universität Tübingen folgenden offenen Brief geschrieben. Dieses Schreiben ist ein nachdenkliches machendes Dokumnent im Blick auf die Zukunft der (nicht nur katholischen) Kirche.
Professor Josef Ratzinger
Pope Benedict XVI 12-02-2012
Dear Josef,
Besides personal communications, I have written you two open
letters since we were colleagues on the Catholic Theology Faculty of the
University of Tubingen, Germany.
I am writing you once again openly, this time not to pose an
objection to an action of yours. Rather, I am writing this time to congratulate
you upon the bravest and wisest act of your life: Your decision to resign from
the papacy because of failing health for the good of the Church!
As a fellow academic who almost matches you in age, I wish
you many good years of quiet reflection, scholarship, and writing after February
28, 2013.
But, before you go into that grey world of quietude, I urge
you to take one more brave stand for the good of the Church, and the world at
large. As the cardinals, and, indeed, the whole world, gather at your feet at
the end of this month, I hope that you will send them into the Consistory to
elect your successor with a visionary commission – this time not as Dean of the
College of Cardinals as you did eight years ago, but this time as
reigning/resigning pope.
In your vision I hope you will portray a Catholic Church which is also catholic with a small as well as a
capital “C,” that is, a Catholic Church that not only holds to the best of its
Catholic tradition, but also
opens itself out to the entire kat’holos, the “whole” world. I and
many, many other Catholics believe that vision must be of a Church that welcomes
and strives to help the “outsiders” of society, as modeled by our “Outsider”
Founder Rabbi Yeshua ha Notzri, Jesus of Nazareth.
Who are these outsiders? First of all, that majority: Women!
You have written books about Jesus, and so you doubtless know that Jesus
Was a Feminist! I am sure that you have not had time to read my 2007
book of that title, but you know the facts that, if we never had the testimony
about Jesus’ life passed on to us by his women followers and promoted by the
rest of the women named in the New Testament, we would have no Christianity
today! The Catholic Church needs to follow the example of our Founder and bring
women fully into the life of our Church.
Jesus also gave us a model of how to care for and protect
another great outsider group – children. The Church’s shameful sacrificing of
these “little ones” must not only cease, but its new, cleansed reality must lead
the way in a world which is full of the oppression of children, which doubtless
has been happening since Cain and Able.
Then there are the poor of all sorts in all societies. Here,
fortunately, the Catholic Church has a more than century old tradition of
preaching and acting in favor of the poor, marginalized. But it must make this
tradition much more effective among its members, especially those who have
leadership roles in government and business. For example, not all American
Catholics put the principles of Catholic social justice into political and
business practice!
That means that the Church leadership must cease it obsession
with sex! It must stop oppressing homosexuals, recognize that Jesus did allow
for divorce and remarriage, cease forcing the priesthood into the straightjacket
of celibacy and maleness. Stop denigrating the body, but stress the beauty of
all matter as created by God, which at the end of each day of creation was said
in Genesis to be tov, good, and even mod tov, very
good!
So Josef, this should be the greatest sermon of your life.
Give it your best shot!
Vergelts Gott!
Len
Prof Catholic
Thought & Interreligious Dialogue dialogue@temple.edu
Tel:
215-204-7251 (O) 215-477-1080 (H) 513-508-1935 (M)
skype:
leonardswidler
Rel. Dept.
Temple U. Philadelphia,
PA 19122 temple.edu/religion
- Leonard Swidler ist auch Mitglied der Interreligiösen Arbeitsstelle (INTR°A):
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