Bernhard Häring

Bernard Häring, CSsR (10 November 1912 – 3 July 1998) was a German moral theologian and a Redemptorist priest in the Catholic Church.

Life
Häring was born at Böttingen in Germany to a prosperous farmer. In 1934, he entered the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, was ordained a priest in 1939, and completed doctoral studies moral theology in obedience to his superiors at the University of Tübingen.

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 at Alphonsian Academy in Rome.

He served as a peritus (expert) at the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965, and was on the mixed commission which prepared the pastoral constitution, Gaudium et Spes.

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, 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
Bernard 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. "God speaks in many ways to awaken, deepen and strengthen faith, hope, love and the spirit of adoration. We are believers to the extent that, in all of reality and in all events that touch us, we perceive a gift and a call from God."

Selected works

 * [German 1954]. 3 Vols.
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