7 May 2026
Hermann Häring (1937–2026) – An Obituary by Karl-Josef Kuschel
On 28 April 2026, Prof. Hermann Häring died in Tübingen at the age of 88. The theologian, church critic and long-standing companion of Prof. Hans Küng leaves behind a void that will be difficult to fill. An obituary by Prof. Karl-Josef Kuschel, written from the perspective of 57 years of friendship.
Theologian, Critic, Champion of Church Reform
I mourn the loss of a friend, colleague and companion with whom I shared a friendship for 57 years, closer than with anyone else outside my family. When I moved to Tübingen in the winter term of 1969/70 to study theology and German language and literature, and attended my first seminar with Hans Küng, Hermann Häring was Küng’s research assistant. Whatever ‘the Professor’ lacked in approachability, Hermann Häring made up for to us students through his empathetic communication skills and willingness to engage. I came to see him early on as a charismatic mediator and discussion partner. For me, he remained so right to the end. A friendly relationship developed, to which I also owe the post of research assistant at Küng’s Institute for Ecumenical Research. An initial phase of collaboration began, to be followed by many others. And Hans Küng shares with us his seminal works from the 1970s: “Being a Christian” (1974) and “Does God Exist? An Answer to the Modern Question of God” (1978). These remain seminal works for our own theology to this day.
In Hermann Häring’s case, of course, the charisma of the emphatic communicator is always combined with a high level of theological expertise. Knowledgeable on the subject, astute in his arguments and brilliant in his style, Hermann Häring is always up to date with the latest developments. He obtained his doctorate under Küng in 1970 with a thesis on intra-church ecumenism, in line with Küng’s research programme at the time following the Second Vatican Council. ‘Church and Kerygma: The Image of the Church in the Bultmann School’ (1972) is the title of Häring’s work, which refers to what were, at the time, entirely new dialogues with contemporary German Protestant theologians influenced by the Protestant New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann. This was followed in 1978 by a habilitation thesis in dogmatic theology, a study on ‘evil’ in dialogue with the theology of Augustine. This was a prerequisite for Häring’s appointment to a professorship in 1980. However, as Hans Küng’s closest disciple – and, moreover, not a priest but a married man and father – he could not have expected at the time to be appointed to a post in dogmatic theology at a German Catholic theological faculty. It was a humiliating and distressing experience for him, as a ‘layman’ amongst nothing but ‘clerics’, right up to the end. Yet this only sharpened his insight into the power structures within real-life German Catholicism, which he sought, more than ever, to understand and combat. He then accepted a chair in Systematic Theology at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, where he could breathe more freely and develop his own theology. This also involved learning the Dutch language, which for him represented a gain in international outlook and cosmopolitanism.
And in terms of theological acuity in his engagement with the Roman Catholic system. Häring emerges as one of the most brilliant critics of traditional clerical Catholic theology of our time, embodied above all in the person of Joseph Ratzinger in his ambivalent role as cardinal in Munich and Rome, and subsequently as Pope. Häring, like no other, dares to undertake a razor-sharp analysis. And his 2001 book “Theology and Ideology in Joseph Ratzinger” has become exactly what the subtitle promises: a ‘well-founded analysis and long-overdue critique of a theology that has turned to stone’. The same is true of his polemic “Freedom in the House of the Lord: On the End of the Clerical Universal Church” (2011). At the same time, Häring has made a name for himself as a thought leader and theological guide to the ‘Church from Below’ movement. Not least for this, he was awarded the Herbert Haag Prize in 2009 for ‘Freedom and Humanity within the Church’. For this prize honours people like him who have championed and continue to champion freedom in, not from, the Church.
Connections with Tübingen and the Global Ethic Project
He remains connected to Tübingen and the theology of Hans Küng. Although he has lived in the Netherlands since 1980, he did not personally witness the genesis and development of Küng’s ‘Global Ethic Project’ (1990), the Declaration on the Global Ethic issued by the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993, or the founding of the Global Ethic Foundation in 1995. Yet Hermann Häring remains committed to the cause and supports it in his own way, particularly as he returned to Tübingen following his retirement in 2005 and is now able to contribute to the Foundation’s work as a scientific adviser. The most striking example is what remains to date the only comprehensive and well-founded overview of Hans Küng’s theology, published in 1998 under the title ‘Hans Küng: Breaking Through Boundaries’. In the final chapter, Häring also describes the Global Ethic project in all its complexity: ‘The Global Ethic and Responsibility for Humanity’. And even more recently, he has been striving to bring the Global Ethic programme up to date, opening the ‘Hans Küng – Global Ethic Lectures’ series with a lecture in Lucerne in 2022.
Anyone wishing to get to know him as a theological thinker and visionary, as a Christian in his faith and spirituality, as a critical commentator on contemporary and church history, as a champion of church reform carried out in the spirit of Jesus, and as a passionate advocate of faith in God whilst remaining fully aware of all criticism of religion, should visit his website. Here he has freed himself from the constraints of publishers and the book market; here, with great personal freedom, he has presented himself to his audience through a wealth of historical and contemporary topics: from the ‘establishment church’ and ‘church reform’ through ‘ethos and values’ to ‘God and the religions’. Here, he masterfully commands all literary forms: from essays to substantively demanding treatises, from lectures to sermons, from commentaries to columns. All underpinned by a passion for the apt theological word – a passion that has made him astute, yet never embittered. His irrepressible humour enables him to coexist with a church whose contradictions cause him suffering, without being able to bring about any real change. His unbroken ability to laugh was always also an expression of a cheerfully accepted sadness at the contradictions of real life, which one cannot change without having to come to terms with them.
But it was in personal conversations that he was at his most impressive. Anyone who was fortunate enough to meet him and listen to him, to be drawn into a conversation with him, to hear him recount his many experiences of Catholicism as it actually existed, will understand when I say: I, along with many others, mourn the loss of this special friend, colleague and comrade-in-arms. His analytical acumen, his critical voice and his faith as a Christian – these will be sorely missed.
Prof. Dr Karl-Josef Kuschel taught the theology of culture and interreligious dialogue at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Tübingen from 1995 to 2013. He was also co-director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research. From 1995 to 2009, he was Vice-President of the Global Ethic Foundation. He later became a member of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees.