Women in Christianity

For two years Küng guided a research project on Women and Christianity, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. For most of the religions of the world, women are a problem. From time immemorial they have been subordinate to men, second class in the family, politics and business with limited rights and even limited participation in worship. It is not only in Christianity that equal rights for women has been a scandalously neglected issue.

By an examination of the history of women in Christianity, Kung points to the scandals of the past.

The prohibition of women servers at Mass and of the ordination of women to the diaconate and the priesthood are symptomatic of a male dominated Church, which takes a consistently ''negative'' attitude towards contraception, abortion and divorce. Roman Catholic Canon Law is androcentric and male dominated.

From his position of intellectual freedom, as an independent Professor at the University of Tubingen, Küng is free to analyse the mistakes of the past and to sketch out a new theology of Women in the Church. This is not stridently feminist but sees the role of women as being vital for the development of the Church as an institution and for preaching the Christian Gospel.