Hans Küng, the theologian who questioned the Pope's infallibility, dies

The Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng, known for having denied the infallibility of the Pope, died this Tuesday at the age of 93, as reported by the Weltethos Foundation, which Küng presided over.

The theologian has died "in peace at his home in Tübingen [Germany]," according to a spokeswoman for the institution.

Küng is considered one of the largest popularizers on Catholic issues in the world and his work has been translated into more than 20 languages.

In 2013, the theologian confessed that he was considering resorting to assisted suicide to end his life, given the progression that he suffered from Parkinson's disease.

"I do not want to continue living as a shadow of myself," he wrote in the third and final volume of his memoirs.

Born in Sursee (Lucerne, Switzerland) in 1928, Küng received a degree in theology from the Gregorian University in Rome, was ordained a priest in 1954 and was assigned to the diocese of Basel.

Pope John XXIII appointed him an official advisor to the Second Vatican Council.

It was in 1967 when Küng published

, one of his controversial works in which he pronounced on the suppression of the

or prior censorship of theological books and the abolition of celibacy, which was followed in 1976 by

, in the one that manifested itself against the dogma of pontifical infallibility.

For these works, on February 21, 1975 the Vatican made a statement by which disciplinary sanctions were not issued against the theologian but he was admonished not to continue teaching theses "that are opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church", but Küng refused to retract.

In 1979, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sanctioned him with the withdrawal of the ecclesiastical authorization to teach and specified that "he could no longer be considered a Catholic theologian."

Küng became the first sanctioned of the pontificate of John Paul II.

In 1980, he ceased to belong to the Faculty of Theology at the University of Tübingen.

Since 1995, he has presided over the Weltethos Foundation, which he created and through which he was in charge of studying and promoting dialogue between religions.

Despite the fact that in 2003 German political and religious leaders highlighted the merits of Küng and asked the Catholic Church for his rehabilitation, in 1997 Cardinal Ratzinger, who later came to the papacy as Benedict XVI, ruled out the possibility of the rehabilitation of the Swiss theologian.

About the current Pope Francis, Küng confessed in a 2013 interview with the German weekly

that he was confident that he would put an end to celibacy among Catholic priests.

He also assured that with Pope Francis a "Catholic spring" came to the Church, both in form and content, and said that this "meant a break with what the previous Pope, Benedict XVI, represented."