Pope’s enforcer bans priest from teaching

The Vatican has banned a Roman Catholic priest from teaching at a theology school claiming that several parts of a book he wrote may contradict church teachings.

’’This is a sad commentary on the state of the church, where you don’t have the same kind of openness for intellectual freedom and discussion of issues,’’ said Francis Schussler Fiorenza, a Catholic theologian at Harvard Divinity School in Massachusetts.

Although the Rev Roger Haight’s book, Jesus Symbol of God, won first prize in theology from the Catholic Press Association and was a selection of the Catholic Book Club, it failed to pass an investigation by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the pope’s main guardian and enforcer of orthodoxy.

Haight’s book, published in 1999 by Orbis Books, is a 505 page academic tome that explores historic and contemporary thinking about Jesus.

The core of the problem with Haight’s book, Jesus Symbol of God is that he explores the possibility that non-Christians can get to heaven without the help of Jesus.

He argues that Jesus is the path to salvation for Christians, but that for non-Christians, God may work in other ways.

The Vatican’s position is that salvation comes only through Jesus, who is an unseen saviour for non-Christians.

America, a Catholic weekly, criticised the investigations of theologians, calling them harassment.

’’The inquisitional methods of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are out of date and do not respect human rights,’’ the magazine said in an editorial. ‘‘They should be dismantled without delay.’’