| Two more scholars censured by Rome
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
A German Benedictine who is also a Zen master has been ordered by
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s top doctrinal official, to cease
all public activities, including lectures, courses and publications.
At roughly the same time, the Conventual Franciscans have relieved
a theologian of teaching duties at Rome’s Bonaventura faculty of theology.
His writings have been under review by Ratzinger’s office.
The action against Benedictine Fr. Willigis Jäger, 76, also
known by his Zen name of Ko-un Roshi, was made public Feb. 5 by the
Würzburg diocese, where Jäger’s Münsterschwarzach Abbey is
located. Benedictine Fr. Nokter Wolf, the abbot primate of the Benedictine
order, confirmed in response to an NCR query that the decision came from
Ratzinger.
Jäger has been faulted for playing down the Christian concept
of God as a person in his work as a spiritual guide, and for stressing mystical
experience above doctrinal truths.
Meanwhile, Franciscan authorities say Fr. Josef Imbach, 56, has
been assigned a year of “reflection,” amounting to a suspension.
Though a Franciscan spokesperson would not elaborate on the motive for the
action, Imbach had revealed two years ago that Ratzinger was carrying out an
investigation of his 1995 book on miracles.
Imbach said at the time that he was accused of not believing in
the divinity of Jesus, of refusing the magisterium of the church, of describing
the gospels as teaching texts rather than historically reliable accounts, and
of excluding the possibility of miracles. He denied holding these views.
Imbach described the investigation in an October 2000 article
published by the progressive Austrian journal Kirche Intern, under the
provocative headline of “Joseph versus Josef.”
For his part, Jäger has indicated he will accept the verdict,
which caps a yearlong investigation led primarily by his Benedictine abbot and
the local bishop of Würzburg. He has begun a period of silence in an abbey
in Einsiedelei, Germany, expected to endure several months. He did not respond
to NCR requests for comment.
Jäger is well-known in the German-speaking world as a
spiritual teacher.
In 1972, he met the Japanese Zen master Yamada Roshi of the Sanbo
Kyodan school. In 1975, he moved to Kamakura in Japan and spent six years
studying Zen, a body of spiritual techniques derived from the Buddhist
tradition. In 1981, Jäger was authorized to train students in Zen.
In 1982, Jäger began offering courses in Zen, using one wing
of the Münsterschwarzach Abbey for his “St. Benedict’s
House.” It offers a center for Zen study as well as a residential
community where Jäger lives with a group of lay students. His courses are
popular, according to sources at the abbey, and daily Zen prayer can draw as
many as 150 people.
Those sources said that Jäger does not take part in the daily
prayer of the Benedictine abbey, and lives a relatively separate life with his
own community.
In an interview published on the Web site of the Würzburg
diocese, Jäger complained of “a lack of directness” in the
process against him.
“Personally, I would hope for an open discussion with the
prosecutors and judges in Rome,” Jäger said. “The prosecutors I
do not know, and I know only the names of the judges. I’ve never spoken
with Cardinal Ratzinger. The entire controversy has developed as a kind of
disciplinary procedure by means of the abbot.”
Jäger said that he found the behavior of Bishop Paul-Werner
Scheele of Würzburg and his vicar general, Karl Hillenbrand, “very
fair.”
“I feel like someone who has been silenced by the doctrinal
congregation,” Jäger said. “In my opinion this is
counterproductive and causes people to pull away from the church. In the long
run of history, every such condemnation has done more harm than good.”
Imbach voiced similar grievances in his October 2000 article,
complaining of “methods of the secret services” such as withholding
the names of those who complained about his work, use of anonymous experts, and
non-transparent methods that reflect an absence of separation between
powers.
“I hope that the ‘maximum possible transparency’
that the Holy Father insists upon (in reference to the counseling of pregnant
women in Germany) will one day be applied also in the Palace of the Holy
Office,” Imbach wrote.
The move against Jäger builds on longstanding concerns
expressed by Ratzinger about the doctrinal consequences of dialogue between
Christianity and Buddhism.
In a Dec. 14, 1989, document, “Some aspects of Christian
Meditation,” the doctrinal congregation urged caution in the use of
techniques of prayer and meditation drawn from Eastern religions. Such methods,
the document says, must be “subjected to a thoroughgoing examination so as
to avoid the danger of falling into syncretism.”
The Münsterschwarzach Abbey is home to another Benedictine
well-known as a spiritual guide and author, Fr. Anselm Grün. Though
Grün draws on modern psychology, his work is also regarded as grounded in
the Christian fathers and hence relatively uncontroversial.
John L. Allen Jr. is NCR’s Rome correspondent.
His e-mail address is jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, March 1,
2002
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