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What irked the Vatican most of all was the topic of his 1970 book Infallible? An Inquiry. Debate over infallibility usually focuses on the First Vatican Council's decree granting the Pope personal infallibility as a teacher under certain circumstances, whether or not he has any "consensus of the church." But Küng goes beyond that, contending on philosophical grounds that no church teaching can ever be infallible—whether derived from Popes, creeds, councils or the Bible itself. Because of the Schillebeeckx trouble, the Vatican would have preferred to strike at Küng next year. But unlike The Netherlands' Johannes Cardinal Willebrands, who defended Schillebeeckx, West Germany's bishops collaborated with the Vatican in the crackdown on Küng and in fact pressed for early action. Bishops in other nations have also privately asked the Vatican to act. Küng has steadfastly refused to go to Rome for questioning, arguing that the entire secretive process is unfair. In 1975 the doctrinal congregation issued a monitum (formal warning) against certain of his ideas.
Küng was on a holiday at his home village of Sursee, Switzerland, when he got the news. Returning immediately to Tübingen, he declared himself "ashamed of my church." The next day, when he arrived for a scheduled university lecture normally attended by 250, the crowd of 1,000 had to be moved to the main auditorium. After receiving an ovation, plus a large bouquet of red carnations, he spoke about the case. "Through this pre-Christmas cloak-and-dagger action, the church defames and discredits its own theologians, not just myself but innumerable others," he said to cheers.
As the Tübingen air filled with handbills and shouted declarations, theologians began to rally in Küng's defense, both in Germany and the U.S. Most major West German newspapers backed Küng, though the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung accused him of "self-exaltation and contempt for others."
Practically speaking, the Vatican decree presents Tübingen University with a dilemma. Whether or not Küng is a Catholic theologian, he is a civil servant with tenure at a secular, state-run school. The Vatican carefully checked its legal standing under the concordat it has with the German government, and believes that professors must have church endorsement to teach Catholic theology. On that basis it claims the power to have Küng removed as Catholic professor of dogmatics. Responsibility for the actual ousting of Küng will fall directly upon Bishop Georg Moser of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.
Under the Vatican ruling, Küng remains a priest and can teach at Tübingen or elsewhere and can publish any opinion he chooses, as long as he makes clear that what he teaches or writes is not Catholic doctrine. But he told TIME: "I have no intention of going to another faculty, and will resist all attempts to move me." He plans to argue that whatever the concordat says, the rules regarding academic freedom in the national constitution of West Germany guarantee his job. That course of action foreshadows a long, bitter and public struggle between Father Küng and the German bishops. ∎