Revelation Idea on the Church's Cracking Down!

Munich's Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger explained the Church's view, saying: "Everyone has the right to develop his own ideas and to express them . . . But not everyone has the right to say that his ideas are an expression of what the Catholic Church teaches . . . [King] must be permitted to investigate and to study. The Church must be permitted to reject him as an interpreter of its teachings."

The Church says that a person of King's prominence dare not be permitted to challenge its authority openly. His calling Church dogmas into question has created confusion and stirred up unrest among Catholics. Action, some feel, was long overdue. Time magazine quoted one Vatican official as saying privately: "John Paul II is cracking down, and he is picking the big ones first." Other Church "embarrassments," such as the Netherlands' theologians Schillebeeckx and Schoonenberg, or Brazil's theology professor Leonardo Bogg, may be next.

Who Is Right-The Church or King?

In all honesty it must be admitted that, viewed from their standpoint, both have certain valid arguments. But two things are disturbing: the unchristian way in which they have carried on their controversy, and their failure to appeal to solid Scriptural evidence in support of their positions.

The Catholic weekly Christ in der Gegenwart (The Contemporary Christian) under the heading "Mistakes on Both Sides" said that the Church had made "regrettable mistakes" in handling the matter, but added: "To a certain extent Professor King, too, must be blamed . . . His cutting language has helped destroy brotherly confidence."

The Hamburger Abendblatt was more blunt: "It was no moderate dispute among holy ones, not one characterized by persuasion, by listening, by a striving for truth in the spirit of love. It was one characterized by beating and stabbing."

Is this what a person would normally expect of a Church claiming to be based upon Christ, who, when he was reviled, did not revile, or of one of its most distinguished theologians, whose "criticism," he claims, is "based on love"?

It is apparent that the Church, confronted with divisive elements within its ranks, is trying hard to uphold its authority. King is fighting hard to remold the Church into what he thinks it should be.

But both have failed. In what respect? In the hundreds of pages of material presented in defense of their individual stands, solid Scriptural argumentation has been forced to take a backseat to Church tradition, popular opinion, human wisdom and philosophical hairsplitting. This should never be.

If you as a sincere Catholic-or Protestant for that matter-are sometimes unsure as to what you should believe, if you are "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine," so to speak, then turn to the Bible for true guidance. Read it, study it, accept help from persons willing to aid you in understanding it. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is inspired of God and is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice.