On the afternoon of December 21st, the fourth Sunday of Advent, **the German theologian Peter Hünermann passed away at the age of 96**. He was one of the last great German theologians marked by the Second Vatican Council. He was not a council expert, as he was too young for that, but all his theological work is the fruit of the spring awakened by the Council, starting with his thesis on the meaning of the category of historicity, so important in the 19th century, for theology (“Der Durchbruch geschichtlichen Denkens im 19. Jahrhundert: Johann Gustav Droysen, Wilhelm Dilthey, Graf Paul Yorck von Wartenburg. Ihr Weg und ihre Weisung für die Theologie”, 1967).
Since then, sensitivity to understanding the faith and the Church within the changes of history was his/her battle horse, along with the ability for *parresía*, the courage to speak out before the pressing problems of the world and the Church.
He was one of the first European theologians to perceive the new air of Liberation Theology (“Gott im Aufbruch: die Provokation der lateinamerikanischen Theologie”, 1974). Although he pointed out from the beginning that the profile of what was proper to Christianity did not seem too clear to him in this new movement, he later became a sympathizer and critical companion, especially of the Argentine branch of the “wisdom of the people,” developing several research projects with the Jesuit Juan Carlos Scannone. He taught systematic theology at the faculties of Münster and Tübingen.
In this final place, already at the summit of his influence and resonance, he was a thesis advisor to many theologians who later obtained professorships at different faculties around the world.
He observed Spain with a critical eye regarding the hierarchy and contemporary theology. But at the same time, he was one of the few German theologians who had understood the light of the School of Salamanca and Castilian mysticism. I remember that he sent me the manuscript of a course on St. John of the Cross that he had given in Tübingen and that, unfortunately, he never published. In it, he speaks, almost with an Unamuno-like echo, of the mystic of the dark night as a representative of a path to modernity no less important than the Cartesian one.
Will leave a mark for the great projects he directed as “spiritus rector”:
1. The new augmented edition of Heinrich Denzinger’s “Enchiridion.” An edition known to every theology student, but which left much to be desired, as it limited itself to assuming the texts and adding some from the magisterium of the 20th century, especially from the Second Vatican Council. Many believe that what is needed is a thorough revision of the selection of the “Denzinger” and the addition of other sources that have been marginalized so far. This new revision will be carried out by the professor from Münster, Michael Seewald, the new star in the German theological firmament.
2. The commentary on the conciliar texts in five volumes that appeared in the Herder publishing house at the beginning of the century and which was made by the new generation of German theologians under their coordination and that of their Tübingen colleague Bernd Jochen Hilberath. If this commentary is compared with the one that appeared shortly after the Council in the supplementary volumes of the “Lexicon for Theology and Church” by the hand of the leading theologians of the Council (Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger or Yves Congar among others), one notices the path traveled by theology in recent decades.
3. And the project, still underway, of an intercontinental commentary on the texts of the Council, taking into account its reception in global Christianity (https://vatican2legacy.com/). It is a project of 16 volumes in German (publisher Herder) and in English (publisher Peeters) with the participation of 130 specialists from around the world. Some volumes have already appeared. I have had the honor of participating in a volume with two texts on theology and the Church in Spain and Portugal before and after the Council.
Apart from this, Peter Hünermann has been, as a theologian, a great “pontiff” in the genuine sense of the word, someone who has built bridges, for example, between theologians from Germany and Latin America, supporting their postgraduate studies in Europe from his position as director of an exchange and scholarship program (https://www.icala.de/español/icala/) in the tradition of his teacher Bernhard Welte.
But his greatest legacy as a “theological pontiff” is the founding in 1989 of the **”European Society for Catholic Theology”** (https://www.esct.hu/), of which he was its first president; and which has succeeded despite the reservations it initially had from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, presided over by Cardinal Ratzinger.
He also created, with his own assets, a foundation for economic support (https://eurotheo.eu/peter-hunermann-foundation-for-the-advancement-of-catholic-theology-in-europe/) to secure the future of that society.
The end of said society, in which, by the way, Spanish theologians are barely present (perhaps because theology in ecclesiastical faculties and seminaries is too much under episcopal tutelage and has no resonance in public universities), is not only to foster international and intercultural exchange in Europe, but also to cultivate *parresia*, the free and prophetic word of theologians, fruit of their propio magisterio.
Thomas Aquinas spoke of a double magistracy in the Church, that of the pastors or bishops and that of the “magistri” or professors. Both must collaborate and influence each other mutually, like two communicating vessels. During the last two centuries, in the Catholic Church in general and in Spain and Latin America in particular, the balance between these two magistries has been lost and the episcopal or papal magistracy has developed to an excessive degree, which for many Catholics has become the sole magistracy, since they have been educated in a certain “papanism” ecclesial.
Of theologians, it was expected that they would obey and become an echo of said teaching, which the young Joseph Ratzinger before the Council criticized as the “Enzyklikentheologie” of those who limited themselves to commenting affirmatively on papal encyclicals, without making use of their creative ability to listen to the people of God or interpret the signs of the times.
Initially, the Council, in which the theologians of change had a fundamental role, opened the door to a new relationship between the two magisteria. But post-conciliar conflicts (the “Hans Küng” case, for example, or the Cologne Declaration of many German theologians in 1989) created a tension that the pastoral magisterium of the bishops has attempted to resolve as always: by calling theologians to order and reminding them in some instructions of the “ecclesial” vocation of theology.
Only in the preamble of the Apostolic Constitution “Veritatis gaudium” of Pope Francis on universities and ecclesiastical faculties can a new tone be perceived when speaking of these institutions as an “(inter)cultural laboratory” and inviting theologians to an “open, incomplete… always developing” thought.
Peter Hünermann is one of those who has best defended the right and duty of theologians to make their voice heard with parrhesia, for the good of the Church itself. He did so especially in his article “Verbindlichkeit kirchlicher Lehre und Freiheit der Theologie” (Binding Character of Church Doctrine and Freedom of Theology), first published in 2007 in the “Theologische Quartalschrift” (pp. 21-36) of Tübingen and republished last year in a book under my direction and that of colleague Klaus Vellguth (“Freiheit”, 2024, pp. 117-137). In that text, in which Peter Hünermann treats the subject historically to better frame the current new situation, it is something like his “testament” of theology.
It is advisable to read and reread it, especially in a country like Spain where the pastoral magistrium of the bishops continues to be practically the only one existing due to a lack of parrhesia among the theologians (there are exceptions, naturally, especially among those who have had to leave theological faculties), sometimes anchored in the way of thinking of the “Enzyklikentheologie.” How far away are those glorious times, when a Francisco de Vitoria or his colleagues would express themselves like this: “Thomas Aquinas (or Innocent IV) says…, but I say”…, thinking with their own heads about the problems of their time with the respect and critical loyalty due to the magistrium of the pastors.
Mariano Delgado*
Religión Digital
*Mariano Delgado* is emeritus professor of Church History in the Faculty of Theology of Freiburg (Switzerland), where he was Dean twice. Between 2021-2025 he was Dean of the Classe VII (Religions) at the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (Salzburg).
English version translated with AI