UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by Fr. Charles E. Curran | Nov. 24, 2012
The following is adapted from Fr. Charles Curran’s contribution to Not Less Than Everything: Catholic Writers on Heroes of Conscience, from Joan of Arc to Oscar Romero, edited by Catherine Wolff, which will be published by HarperCollins in February 2013. Redemptorist Fr. Bernard Häring would have been 100 on Nov. 10.
My appreciation for Bernard Häring was summed up in the dedication of my 1972 book, Catholic Moral Theology in Dialogue — “To Bernard Häring CSsR, teacher, theologian, friend, and priestly minister of the Gospel in theory and practice on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.” As a very young priest of the diocese of Rochester, N.Y., I was doing doctoral work at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome from 1959 to 1961. I was scheduled to teach moral theology at the diocesan seminary in Rochester. After four years of theology at the Gregorian University, I was opening up somewhat from my conservative theological orientation and my commitment to the moral theology of the manuals. I did not write my dissertation with Häring, but I was truly thrilled and nourished by his classes (in Latin) in which he developed his approach to moral theology. At my invitation many fellow priests living with me at the American college in Rome came to hear him and were greatly impressed. …
In the summer of 1979, I was informed that I was under investigation from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for my dissent on a number of moral issues. That fall I went to Rome to consult with Häring and others. Throughout the process I stayed in close touch with Bernard. After much correspondence back and forth it became clear in late 1985 that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was going to take action against me, which they ultimately did in declaring that I was neither suitable nor eligible to be a Catholic theologian. However, they did agree to have an informal meeting of myself with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and some officials of the congregation in March 1986. I was able to bring one advisor. All along Häring had agreed that if there were such a meeting he would accompany me.
Häring’s presence was a source of great strength and consolation to me. He began the session by reading a two-page paper titled “The Frequent and Long-Lasting Dissent of the Inquisition/Holy Office/CDF.” It was Häring at his forthright best at speaking to power. In the end he strongly urged Ratzinger to accept a compromise that I would not teach sexual ethics at Catholic University and there would be no condemnation. The meeting ended without any solution or action.
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