A 'Friendly Fight' Between Two Cardinals

Two cardinals in the Roman Curia, both of them German theologians, are engaged in a "friendly" argument, the result of which may shape the future of the Catholic Church. The disputants are Josef Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith (who has been terrorizing theologians for many years) and Walter Kasper, the new head of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Anyone who knows German theologians will understand that the argument, while not as furious as the battle of Krusk, is not exactly what we Americans would call friendly. Moreover, while they may be useful at times, it would be better to be governed by the first 500 names in the Chicago phone book than by a gaggle of German theologians. However, the argument between the two cardinals may impinge on the next papal conclave and on the direction of the Catholic Church in this new century.

The issue is the relationship between the universal church and the local churches. At the risk of oversimplifying the issue (and thus avoiding a column that is several volumes long), Cardinal Ratzinger insists that the local churches subsist in the universal church while Cardinal Kasper contends that the universal church subsists in the local churches.

An American might protest that this is a kind of silly argument and that both propositions ought to be and perhaps are true. Probably the American would be right, but he would miss the point. German theologians fashion such theoretical arguments as a pretext to support policy decisions that they have already made.

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