SOURCE: “Rome's Blunt Renegade,” in Maclean's, Vol. 98, No. 46. November 18, 1985, pp. 5, 8.

In the following essay, Bierman discusses Küng's contentious relationship with Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church.

To many conservative Roman Catholics the action appeared treasonous. For many reformists, on the other hand, it seemed courageous. On Oct. 4 and 5, newspapers in Toronto, London, Madrid, Zurich, Hamburg and Rome carried the latest polemic of Dr. Hans Küng, Pope John Paul II's most celebrated and persistent Catholic critic. The two-part article was a 6,000-word onslaught on what Küng says is the reactionary and repressive policies of the pontiff and his church bureaucracy, the Curia. “The old Inquisition is dead; long live the new one,” wrote Küng. “‘Persistent doubt’ about a truth of the faith is punishable with excommunication. No one is burned at the stake any more, but careers and psyches are destroyed as required...