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Only God. For all the debate and bad feeling that papal infallibility has caused—several bishops at Vatican I walked out rather than approve it—it has been used formally only once since then, in the 1950 pronouncement that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven after her life on earth. In Kűng's view, reform-minded Vatican Council II actually made things worse. It not only reiterated Vatican I's teaching, but went on to extend infallibility to the entire hierarchy. That affirmation was drawn from the direct, exclusive succession of Catholic bishops in an unbroken line from the apostles—a doctrine that Kűng thinks has "feet of clay" because of its weak biblical and historical basis. The most dangerous consequence of infallibility, in Kűng's opinion, is the way it colors the "ordinary" teaching office of the church. Pope Paul VI's birth control encyclical of 1968, for example, though not made as an ex cathedra infallible pronouncement, is nonetheless considered certain and binding. Kűng believes that Paul actually wanted to issue a liberal decree but felt that he could not admit that there had been so major a longstanding error in church teaching.
Kűng's reading of church history serves only as preparation for his much more fundamental philosophical attack. He doubts if any infallible statements are possible, whether from Popes, councils or even the Bible. At this point the argument strikes home, not only for Rome but for traditionalists in all branches of Christendom. Only God is infallible, Kűng says; propositions of faith are not God's word but at best the divine message translated by man's words—often inadequate, open to misunderstanding and changeable in different languages or contexts. Because there are half-truths and errors containing elements of truth, Kűng believes, Christians must allow for errors in their creeds.
Does the introduction of doubt unglue Christianity? Unlike many of his critics, Kűng does not believe so. For the individual, he says, belief is not the acceptance of infallible propositions but a commitment to Jesus Christ and his message. For the church as an institution, says Kűng, the concept of service should be stressed rather than one of authority. In doctrine, he would replace the word infallibility with the less limiting but also traditional concept of "indefectibility"—a quality of permanence in the truth that is undisturbed, in Kűng's view, by individual errors.
Tepid Reproach. Kűng's challenge could hardly be ignored. The Vatican's doctrinal congregation sent reactions of its member cardinals off to the German bishops, who questioned Kung, then issued a tepid public reproach several weeks ago. Kűng boasted that they had skirted condemnation, leaving the way open to further debate. In Italy, Pope Paul's most intimate theological adviser, Bishop Carlo Colombo of Milan, helped write a statement for the Italian hierarchy declaring that it is impossible to support or spread Kűng's views "without separating oneself from the full communion of the church." More startlingly, Kűng's old friend and mentor, Jesuit Theologian Karl Rahner, doubted that a theologian with such opinions could still be considered a Catholic.