Paul F. Knitter

Paul F. Knitter ( born February 25, 1939 in Chicago) is an American Catholic theologian and scholar of religion. He is currently a Professor of Theology, World Religions and Cultures at the prestigious ' Paul Tillich Chair ' at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.

Education and employment

After studying theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome ( licentiate 1966) he went to Munster, to do his doctorate under Karl Rahner. After half a year he made the discovery that someone else had just been published in Rome a dissertation on the same subject. Crease then completed his studies with a doctorate from the Protestant Theology at the University of Marburg (1972). He was the first Roman Catholic theologian who was admitted to the theological doctorate at the University of Marburg. A friend from his Marburg period of study is the Protestant theologian Bernd Jaspert, the publisher of his book horizons of liberation. Since 1972 he has been a professor at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Since 1975 he was Professor of Systematic Theology and Religious Studies at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was a member of the Societas Divini Verbi (SVD). 1984 signed crease Campaign A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion.

Crease applies since the 1980s as a leading proponent of religious pluralism and has been for sharply criticized by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who accused him of relativism. In conservative Catholic circles is also pointed out repeatedly that crease in 1975 and married abandoned the priesthood, and therefore assumed that he would no longer really qualifies as a theologian. He is married to Cathy Cornell, he completed his book, No other name? devoted, which was also translated into German.

He is considered one of the world's leading Christian representatives of the dialogue of religions and since the publication of his book Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian as a proponent of the " religious bilingualism " (Dual Belonging ).