Faith & Spirit Quote by Hans Kung

“More authentic” is doing the quiet heavy lifting here: it’s a theological verdict disguised as a pastoral preference. Hans Kung is pointing to Vatican II’s most visible change - the move from Latin to vernacular worship - but his real target is a deeper power shift. If the liturgy is “of the people of God,” then the church is not primarily a clerical performance watched by lay spectators; it’s a shared action that presumes comprehension, response, and ownership. Language becomes politics by other means.

The intent is reformist and corrective. Kung isn’t merely praising accessibility; he’s arguing that the church’s credibility depends on transparency. A rite people can’t understand can still be revered, but it can also function as insulation: ritual that protects authority by keeping meaning at arm’s length. Vernacular worship punctures that distance. It invites participation, but it also invites scrutiny. Once ordinary Catholics can hear the prayers plainly, they can notice what’s emphasized, what’s omitted, what kind of God is being invoked, and what kind of community is being imagined.

Context matters: Kung was a prominent Catholic theologian of the Vatican II era who later clashed with Rome over authority and doctrine. His choice of “Second” suggests a list of gains from conciliar reform, framing vernacular liturgy as evidence that change can be faithful rather than faithless. The subtext is a quiet rebuttal to traditionalist nostalgia: authenticity isn’t located in older forms by default; it’s located where the church actually becomes legible to its people.