COMUNICATION

The Board of Trustees, the Academy and the staff of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation mourn the death of the 93-year-old Swiss theologian Hans Küng, a member of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste since 2004, when he took possession of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Chair. (07/04/2021)

He studied theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained a priest in 1954. He continued his studies at several European universities, including La Sorbonne. He was officially appointed a Council theologian by Pope John XXIII in 1962 and he actively participated as an expert at the Second Vatican Council as such. After the death of Pope John in 1963, Rome and Küng had stormy disagreements of worldwide resonance.

Küng was the founder and president of the World Ethic Foundation, which promotes interreligious dialogue as a basis for initiating processes leading to world peace. His articles have been published in the best world newspapers and he has received some twenty honorary doctorates from major universities. Hans Küng’s work has been reflected in a vast work, whose common denominator in the publications of recent decades is the promotion of mutual understanding and the consolidation of a new world ethic that makes the coexistence of religions possible.

The theologian received the distinction as academic of Yuste together with the Spanish scientist Margarita Salas; French and Hungarian sociologists, Alain Touraine and Zsuzsa Ferge, respectively; the Dutch politician Willem Frederik Duisenberg; Belgian scientist Peter Piot and Polish historian Bronislaw Geremek. The appointment took place during the solemn ceremony in which the Carlos V European Award was delivered to Jorge Fernando Branco Sampaio at the Royal Monastery of Yuste.

Since his entry into the Academy of Yuste, the Swiss theologian participated in several of the Foundation’s activities, including his article, “Europe und die Herausforderung des Islam” (Europe and the challenge of Islam), in the magazine “Pliegos de Yuste” number 3 in 2005: http://www.pliegosdeyuste.eu/n3pliegos/hanskung.pdf, and in several “Declaraciones de Yuste”, that were published ever since he joined the Academy in 2004: https://www.fundacionyuste.org/en/academy-objectives/objetivos/