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Hans K眉ng is arguably the most radical theologian in the Roman Catholic Church today. He expressed serious disappointment a year ago following the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope. They are former academic colleagues; indeed K眉ng was instrumental in the appointment of Joseph Ratzinger to the theology faculty at the University of T眉bingen in Germany. K眉ng was barred from teaching as a Catholic theologian in December 1979, by order of Pope John Paul II, though he continued in his secular university appointment at T眉bingen until his retirement in 1996 and is still a priest.

On Easter Sunday, we broadcast an interview I conducted with Hans K眉ng. I was keen to discover his assessment of Pope Benedict鈥檚 first year at the helm of the Roman Catholic Church. K眉ng was surprisingly positive -- and surprisingly willing to talk about his now-famous, four-hour private dinner with the pope in the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo last September. Here's a transcript. To listen to the interview, go to the Sunday Sequence website.

Transcipt: An Interview with Hans K眉ng

William Crawley: What kind of a papacy is this turning out to be after the first year?

Hans K眉ng: Well, that is not so easy to say. But I can certainly tell you that my disappointment . . . I had when I heard of the election of my former colleague Joseph Ratzinger . . . that this disappointment did not realise. I must say he made it much better than I expected, and we still can have hope that he will make progress in the church.

Crawley: You said a year ago that your disappointment was based on your hope for a reformist and a pastoral pope. How has that disappointment been dented?

K眉ng: He was not the former head of the Holy Office. I mean he tried to be pastoral, he avoided negative statements and pessimistic evaluation of many things in the road. He really tried to give the impression of a pastoral pope.

Crawley: Charles Curran, a theologian who, like yourself, has been barred from teaching within the Church, says that he has actually been pleasantly surprised by the Pope鈥� first year in office 鈥� that the Pope has shown himself to be capable of adopting the role as 鈥渁 centre of unity鈥�.

K眉ng: Well, that was certainly my personal impression because he gave me the opportunity to talk to him, and not just for an audience; but I was able to have a long, long personal and proper conversation with him in Castel Gandolfo during four hours. If you compare that with his predecessor, who did not answer my letters, and gave me no opportunity to talk to him during 27 years, then this is a very positive change for me personally.

Crawley: Was that because, as you said earlier, you were former teaching colleagues with Joseph Ratzinger? Was that because you had a personal understanding and friendship that pre-dated his rise to the head of the Catholic Church?

K眉ng: Well, he certainly remembers every thing: that I was Dean of the Faculty when he was appointed. I was very instrumental in his call to T眉bingen, and we had three years of good co-operation. I think this is still, . . . in his memory and in a certain way this time came back when we met again. I think we met the last time in 1983. After [such a] long period we nevertheless remembered very well what we had in common.

Crawley: Did you reminisce about those days?

K眉ng: We spoke more about the problems the church is facing today in the world. There were especially three fields of questions: the relationship of Christian faith and the natural sciences (he was very much interested in my book 鈥� I sent it to him 鈥� on the beginning of all things, the origin of the cosmos, the origin of life, the origin of humanity); then, second, the dialogue of religions, especially the dialogue between Christianity and Islam; and then, third, the project of global ethics that means that we need a few ethical standards which are in common for all the religions and for believers and unbelievers.

Crawley: Did you take the opportunity on that occasion to offer the Pope any advice about how he might direct the future of the Catholic Church?

K眉ng: Well, as I told you, [we spoke] about problems of foreign policy, because 鈥� I wrote to him beforehand, [to say] that I am not interested in discussing the problems of domestic policy, on which we are in deep disagreement 鈥� that is celibacy, the pill, inter-communion, etc. etc. This would have been useless. I nevertheless hope, of course, that he will come back to this issue, because the Church is in a great need to have practical solutions.

Crawley: Did you find the Holy Father easy to talk to and to argue with on that occasion?

K眉ng: The conversation we had was very, very pleasant. It was not at all under 鈥� any kind of predicament. It was a rather natural conversation.

Crawley: Were you surprised by the choice of love, Christian love, as the theme of the Pope's first encyclical?

K眉ng: Well, I was happily surprised. I of course know that he is very much in the line of Saint Augustine, where love is also a very central concept of his theology. But I was happily surprised that he was speaking about love and not about faith. He was nevertheless the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but faith in his understanding is always something where you have regulations, where you have to insist on certain dogmas and so on. I was happy that he spoke about love; and he has done it in a rather constructive way, without [the] negative statements you hear sometimes from Church people.

Crawley: I think many of us expected, given his previous statements about relativism and subjectivism and the dialogue and debate about truth in the world today, that he might choose that topic as the subject of his first encyclical.

K眉ng: He may now be in a new situation, you know. When he was the head of the Holy Office, he always had to say, 鈥淲ell, here are doctrinal deviations; here are some people who are not absolutely Catholic鈥�, and so on. He had always to use censorship, and all the rest. Now he is in a different position: he has to talk to people, he has to face all sorts of people, he needs the sympathy of the people, he has to show a pastoral mind. And, I think he [understands] very well that he cannot show the same face as he had before.

Crawley: When you left him that evening at Castel Gandolfo, what were your thoughts about the person you had met?

K眉ng: I had 鈥� a very good impression 鈥� that we understood each other. That we respected each other, and that this was for both sides a winning situation. He tried everything 鈥� as I tried 鈥� not to appear, so to speak, as the winning party. I think we both had positive experiences, and I would just hope that he would also have a conversation with other people in the same way.

Crawley: Did you gain the impression that you were talking to someone who was open 鈥� someone capable of taking some of the very big decisions you believe are necessary for the future of the Catholic Church?

K眉ng: Well, he is a bright man. And I liked to talk to him because, in comparison with his predecessor, he is of course, a very, very good theologian . . . you can speak, in a way, on the same level. Now, another question is whether he will have the strength to act juridically speaking. He has all power. He could easily say, 鈥淲ell, let us speak now in an open way about, let us say, the problem of divorced and remarried people, or maybe we should nevertheless reflect on the question of certain sexual problems鈥�, and so o. He would have the juridical power to do that, and I just hope he would just give the freedom of discussion. I think what we need is a discussion in the Church. And then he has several possibilities to act: he can do a lot of things alone, or he can use the synod of bishops, where there are certainly many bishops who would like to have reforms, or he could convoke another ecumenical council.

Crawley: I think in his first synod of bishops, the idea 鈥� the very controversial idea 鈥� of abandoning celibacy, or permitting priests to marry, was actually voiced in his presence, wasn't it?

K眉ng: Yes, that's a long, long story. He knows, as I know, that we were both advisors of the Second Vatican Council, that certain bishops wanted to talk about celibacy in Saint Peter鈥檚, in the Council, and they were forbidden. Then we got the encyclical of Pope Paul, which had no effect. As a matter of fact, the situation worsened and worsened; and finally, I think, the bishops have big [problems finding] priests. How [can] the church survive if you have no 鈥� more priests in our parishes?

Crawley: How would you assess the challenges facing Pope Benedict now and in the years that lie ahead for him as head of the Catholic Church?

K眉ng: Well, you know, there is a certain danger [of seeing] only the fa莽ade of the Church; and the Pope, of course, is especially in danger of seeing only fa莽ade when he is in Saint Peter鈥檚 Square: when he goes somewhere he has, everywhere, people applauding and greeting him. But I think we have to see that the Church behind the scenes, behind the fa莽ade, is in deep trouble. We have [fewer and fewer] priests. We have not enough seminarians at all. There are more priests dying than seminarians. A lot of parishes are now 鈥� administered by another priest; sometimes a priest administers three, four, or seven or eight parishes. We even have to sell 鈥� in certain countries 鈥� churches. There is less participation in the Sunday worship, less ecclesiastical weddings, etc. That is not a rosy situation. And I don't think we can go ahead with all that. We need reforms.