Bernard Häring (10 November 1912 – 3 July 1998) was a German moral theologian and a

Redemptorist The Redemptorists, officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (), abbreviated CSsR, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men (priests and brothers). It was founded by Alphonsus Liguori at Scal ...

priest in the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

Life

Häring was born at

Böttingen Böttingen is a municipality in the district of Tuttlingen in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. In recent decades it has developed from an agricultural village to an advanced industrial community. Geography Böttingen sits on a plateau in the southw ...

in Germany to a prosperous farmer. In 1934, he entered the

Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer The Redemptorists, officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (), abbreviated CSsR, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men (priests and brothers). It was founded by Alphonsus Liguori at Scal ...

, was ordained a priest in 1939, and completed doctoral studies moral theology in obedience to his superiors at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

. During World War II, he was conscripted by the German army and served as a medic. Although forbidden from performing priestly functions in public by the Nazi authorities, he brought the sacraments to Catholic soldiers. In 1954, he came to international fame as a moral theologian with his three volume, ''The Law of Christ.'' The work received ecclesiastical approval but was written in a style different from the manual tradition. It was translated into more than twelve languages. Between 1949 and 1987, he taught

moral theology Ethics involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''"Ethics" A central aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worth living or life that is simply satisfyin ...

Alphonsian Academy 150px, Alphonsus Liguori, whose teachings inspired the establishment of the Academy. The Pontifical Alphonsian Academy (; ), also commonly known as the Alphonsianum, is a pontifical institution of higher education founded in 1949 by the Redempt ...

in Rome. He served as a (expert) at the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

from 1962 to 1965, and was the chief architect on the mixed commission which prepared the pastoral constitution, ''

Gaudium et Spes (, "Joys and Hopes"), the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, is one of the four constitutions promulgated during the Second Vatican Council between 1963 and 1965. Issued on 7 December 1965, it was the last and longest publ ...

''. Häring taught at various universities including the University of San Francisco, Fordham, Yale, Brown, Temple, and the Kennedy Institute for Bioethics at Georgetown. A prolific writer, Häring produced about 80 books and 1,000 articles. He died of a stroke at the age of 85 at

Haag in Oberbayern Haag in Oberbayern (, ) is a municipality in the district of Mühldorf in Bavaria in Germany, in December 2013 the municipality had a population of 6359. Geography Haag is situated about 50 km east of Munich, 15 km south of Dorfen, 21 km west o ...

, Germany. Häring established himself as a leader in moving Catholic moral theology to a more personalist and scripture-based approach.

Dialogical approach to Catholic moral theology

Häring presents a dialogical approach to Catholic moral theology in his trilogies ''The Law of Christ'' and ''Free and Faithful in Christ''. In this approach, morality follows the pattern of faith necessitating a dialogue. This approach to morality rests on the person's conscience that acknowledges God as basis of value; he writes:

Selected works

* erman 1954 3 Vols. * * * * * * * * * * * * ( 3 Vols.) *

References

External links

Obituary in NYT
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haring, Berhard 1912 births 1998 deaths People from Tuttlingen (district) 20th-century German Catholic theologians Christian ethicists Redemptorists Roman Catholic moral theologians German male non-fiction writers Participants in the Second Vatican Council Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg 20th-century German Roman Catholic priests