A spat among Cardinals.

Cologne -- Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne has criticized Cardinal Karl Lehmann for promoting "liberalism and an excessive doctrinal tolerance" at a Catholic gathering ac Ulm in June. More than 20,000 people attended the "Katholikentag." Cardinal Lehmann had invited several dissident Catholics to speak. Among them was Hans Kung, whose teaching authority was withdrawn by the Vatican in 1979. Also present was Bishop Jacques Gaillot, dismissed from the diocese of Evreux, France, for opposing priestly celibacy, male-only ordination and the ban on condoms; and German theologian Eugen Drewerman who was suspended from the active priesthood in 1992 for heretical views on the nature of the Church. All of them repeated their old, anti-Roman chesnuts, with Kung typically enough, speaking of the "Kremlin-like" Roman Curia.

Wrote Cardinal Meisner who had had enough: "Does unorthodoxy predestine a person to be invited to the Katholikentag?"

The Cologne Cardinal has since led several German bishops, including those of Regensburg, Eichstaett, Speyer and the Archbishop of Bamberg in organizing a forum of tradition-minded priests and lay people to discuss the form of future conferences (The Tablet, June 20, July 10, 2004; Prairie Messenger, June 20, 2004).