Wie heeft de macht? of Wie is Jezus? De verschillende visies op Kerk-zijn van Hans Küng en Joseph Ratzinger

In het kader van de vraag of het katholicisme uit de geschiedenis verdwijnt, verwijzen we naar een recent bijzonder interessant en lezenswaardig kort artikel van de Amerikaanse filosoof en politicoloog Samuel Gregg, waarin deze de pas en haast gelijktijdig verschenen boeken Jezus van Nazaret II van Joseph Ratzinger en Kan de Kerk nog gered worden? van Hans Küng bespreekt, en en passant twee visies op de Kerk laat zien (en dus twee uitgangspunten voor kerkelijk handelen) die er altijd zijn geweest en er altijd zullen zijn. Eén citaat (enkel als voorproefje van hele stuk!):

Unfortunately for Küng, he has two problems. One is theological. No matter how much scandal has been caused by Borgia popes, inept bishops, heretical theologians, sexually-predatory clergy or sinful laity, the Catholic Church teaches “the gates of hell will never prevail against it.”
In short, the cosmological battle has already been won. Hence the Church isn’t anyone’s to be “saved.” Yes, all Catholics and other Christians continue to sin, but the Church’s survival has been guaranteed by Christ. In that light, the notion the Church needs to be “saved” by late middle-aged dissenting baby-boomers is more than absurd: it’s also arrogant.
Küng’s agenda also has a practical problem. Put simply, it’s failed. Whether it is interpreting Vatican II as a rupture with the past or banalizing the liturgy with clown masses and 1970s music, no-one can plausibly claim the accommodationist project infused life into Catholicism.
Instead, it produced ashes. In much of the West, it facilitated moral relativism, a bureaucratization of church organizations, and the collapse of once-great religious orders into not-especially coherent apologists for name-your-latest-lefty-cause. [...]
Benedict’s vision of the Church is utterly different. It does not indulge the fantasy that a “new church” somehow materialized in 1965. Nor does it hanker after an imaginary 1950s golden age.
Instead it’s a Church focused upon deepening its knowledge of, faithfulness to, and love for Christ. It’s also a Church that engages the world, but is not subservient to passing intellectual-fashion. Finally, it’s a Church which is evangelical in the best sense of the word: proposing – rather than hedging or imposing – the Truth revealed by Christ.
But perhaps the most revealing difference between Benedict and Fr. Küng’s books is the tone. Can the Church still be saved? is characterized by anger – the fury of an enfant terrible who’s not-so-enfant anymore and who knows the game is up: that his vision of Catholicism can’t be saved from the irredeemable irrelevance into which it has sunk.
Jesus of Nazareth, however, is pervaded by humility: the humility of one who approaches human history’s greatest mystery, applies to it his full intellect, and then presents his contribution for others’ assessment.