Rahner's “tough love” for the church – structural change in the church as task and opportunity

Abstract

A period of Rahner's life that has received insufficient attention is that following his formal retirement as a professor at the age of sixty-seven in '97'. This was a particularly vibrant and fruitful time in Rahner's life: a period in which he found considerable acceptance of his views in the mainstream intellectual community; a time during which many of his more theoretical reflections found expression in terms of concrete argument and debate for Church reform; a stage in which he was at his most courageous in criticizing those impeding Church renewal, renewal which he considered vital and necessary if the Church was to be able to respond with energy and credibility to the increasing secularised cultural context. Rahner's formal retirement as a professor coincided with the beginning of the Synod of the German Church, in which he was fully and energetically engaged. His stature in the German Church at that time meant that his views had to be taken seriously by all concerned. This chapter will review that period in Rahner's life and explore what the Church today can learn from his work during that period, on the basis that the issues he sought to tackle are still current, and that his proposals still deserve a hearing. But first, it is important to locate our reflections within the context of how Rahner is currently perceived within the Church.