Hans Kung Quotes

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.

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung

“All historical experience demonstrates the following: Our earth cannot be changed unless in the not too distant future an alteration in the consciousness of individuals is achieved.”

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“The Gospel has to be the norm.”

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“I like the catholicity in time: our tradition is one of 2,000 years.”

— Hans Kung

“I remember the Curia said, that's up to the American bishops, not up to Rome.”

— Hans Kung

“Second, we also got a more authentic liturgy of the people of God, in the vernacular language.”

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

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.

— Hans Kung

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.

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“Alluding to hell is a warning that a person can completely neglect his purpose in life. I don't believe in an eternal hell.”

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“In my view, the Catholic Church as a community of faith will be preserved, but only if it abandons the Roman system of rule. We managed to get by without this absolutist system for 1,000 years. The problems began in the 11th century, when the popes asserted their claim to absolute control over the Church.”

— Hans Kung

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.

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung

Even apart from the image of a truly merciless God that contradicts everything we can assume from what Jesus says about the Either of the lost, can we be surprised at a time when retributive punishments without an opportunity of probation are being increasingly abandoned in education and penal justice, that the idea not only of a lifelong, but even eternal punishment of body and soul, seems to many people absolutely monstrous.

— Hans Kung

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

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung

A Church which abandons the truth abandons itself.

— Hans Kung

“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.”

— Hans Kung