George Weigel has excoriated Hans Kueng in this welcome article published today by First Things. It comes in response to Kueng's open letter to bishops, published in the Irish Times and aimed at fomenting dissent and disapproval of Benedict XVI. That he would see himself in a position to take such an initiative in relation to bishops says rather a lot about Kueng.
Weigel begins his piece by recalling how Kueng, when a professor in the 1960s, bought himself a Mercedes convertible, assumed to have a been the fruit of the success of his book. This is well known and some might think it irrelevant, but I believe it's important as it gives further insight into his character.
As I found researching my recent piece on Christopher Hitchens, one can discover a fair amount about a person's anger and dissent by studying their past.
Perhaps it's time someone took a closer look at Kueng's.
Incidentally, two things I missed out of the Hitchens piece which should probably have been included: firstly that he is a heavy drinker (though this is well known), but secondly I've since discovered that his mother and her ex-Anglican vicar lover took their own lives after becoming caught up in the cult of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, "the sinister windbag who had brought enlightenment to the Beatles in the summer of love," as Hitchens puts it.
Yet more fuel to stoke Hitchens's hatred of religion, though ironically the Catholic Church was the only serious critic of the "free love" mentality of the 60s and 70s.
Picture: a caricature of Hans Kueng I drew for The Tablet a year or two ago.
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