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Cardinal Lehmann:
Rebel in a Red
Hat
by Christopher A. Ferrara
 This writer was
in Rome on February 21, 2000 to witness the creation of Bishop Karl Lehmann as
a Prince of the Holy Catholic Church. I was hoping and praying that
something—a gust of wind, a lightning bolt from the blue sky,
anything—would prevent that red hat from being placed on that particular
head. But God has deigned to permit it.
Even the liberal
Italian press calls Lehman a “soft rebel,” contrasting him with
“hard rebels” such as Hans Küng. And a rebel he is: for years
Lehman resisted the Vatican’s efforts to stop the German bishops from
operating “counseling centers” which issued certificates German women
need to obtain abortions under German law—virtual death warrants for the
unborn. Lehman is a theological as well as a moral rebel. He has publicly
questioned the Church’s teaching that divorced and remarried Catholics may
not receive Holy Communion. He co-authored (with fellow “soft rebel”
Bishop Walter Kasper, who was also rewarded with a Cardinal’s hat) a
theology text which, among other things, denies the existence of a personal
devil and personal demons.
Lehman is
unrepentant since his elevation to the status of Cardinal. CWN reported that
the day after he got his coveted red hat, Lehman “told reporters that he
did not regret his opposition to the Holy See on the question of abortion
counseling in Germany.” Lehman has also suggested that the national
bishops’ conferences created after Vatican II should have decision-making
power as a “complementary body” to the Holy See. This is in direct
contradiction to the Vatican’s recent instruction on episcopal
conferences, which notes that they are to have no juridical power in the
Church. Lehman’s notion, if implemented, would further undermine papal
authority, which has already been severely compromised for the sake of
“collegiality.”
The elevation of
Lehmann to cardinal is yet another indication of the current unprecedented
crisis in the Church. Lehmann’s diocese was handing out certificates for
the murder of unborn children only a few months ago, and now he is a prince of
the Church. Hans Küng is a priest in good standing in the Diocese of Basle
and still teaches theology despite having been stripped of his theological
credentials in 1980.
Meanwhile,
however, Father Nicholas Gruner is threatened with excommunication or reduction
to the lay state (defrocking) by the Congregation for the Clergy, whose
Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos claims he is acting out of “vigilance” for
the clergy and the good of souls. Please! Why is Father Gruner threatened with
ultimate penalties while Lehmann, who facilitated abortions, is made a Prince
of the Church? Because Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State, takes
offense to Fatima Crusader magazine’s criticism of his geopolitical
initiatives, including press conferences and dinners at the Vatican with
Mikhail Gorbachev, who is promoting a worldwide regime of abortion and
contraception. The same Cardinal Sodano, by the way, has publicly praised the
writings of Hans Küng, who has publicly condemned the Pope as a despot who
“rules in the spirit of the Spanish Inquisition.” The
Congregation’s “vigilance” seems rather selective.
The brilliant
writer and speaker Dr. David Allen White has noted that the current situation
in the Church is like the plot of King Lear: the daughter who truly loves the
King is exiled and hounded, while the treacherous daughter is rewarded with the
kingdom. From this Fatima perspective, what is happening to Father Gruner and
other faithful priests like him is indeed a tragedy of Shakespearean
proportions.
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