Hans Küng is an internationally known Roman Catholic theologian and president of the Global Ethic Foundation, which is dedicated to inter-cultural and inter-religious research, education, and encounter. Professor of ecumenical theology emeritus at the University of Tübingen, he is a prolific author who has long called for a more doctrinally liberal Church. Dr. Küng was born in Switzerland and studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome where he received licentiates in philosophy and in theology. He was ordained a priest in 1954, continued his studies in a number of European cities, and was awarded a doctorate in theology from the Institut Catholique in Paris in 1957. After two years of pastoral work in Lucerne, he was appointed to the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Münster. He was named a full professor of fundamental theology on the Catholic Faculty of the University of Tübingen in 1960. Pope John XXIII appointed him peritus to the Second Vatican Council two years later, and he served as an expert theological advisor to the delegates until the Council’s conclusion 1965. Two years earlier, he had taken up a professorship of dogmatic and ecumenical theology on the Catholic Faculty of Tübingen and served as the director of the new Institute for Ecumenical Research. Dr. Küng’s earliest writing was on Christian existence, following from his dissertation on differences between Catholic and Protestant theology, which was published in English as Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection (1965 and 2004). He soon turned to the Church and Christian ecumenism with The Council, Reform and Reunion (1961 and 1965), The Church (1967 and 1976), and the controversial Infallible? An Inquiry (1971 and 1994), which led Pope John Paul II to revoke his official permission to teach as a Catholic theologian in 1979. Dr. Küng carried on in his academic and administrative posts at the University of Tübingen until his retirement in 1996. As he began working out his own theology of the exegetical and historical foundations of Christianity, he published, among other books, On Being A Christian (1976, 1984, and 1991), Does God Exist? (1980 and 1991), and Eternal Life? (1984 and 1991). Studies followed on inter-religious dialogue and the different world religions, including Tracing the Way: Spiritual Dimensions in World Religions (2002). In the nineties, he broadened his focus to worldwide political and economic issues and initiated a project called Weltethos (Global Ethic). He wrote Global Responsibility: In Search of A New World Ethic (1991), and his vision was embodied in a document, for which he wrote the initial draft, “Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration,” which was presented to the 1993 Parliament of the World Religions and endorsed by religious and spiritual leaders from many nations. He also drafted a “Universal Declaration of Human Responsibility” for the Inter-Action Council, an organization of former presidents and prime ministers. Through the years, Dr. Küng has been recognized for his scholarship and leadership with thirteen honorary degrees from universities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, numerous awards, among them the Interfaith Gold Medallion of the International Council of Christians and Jews, and, in 2001, then Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan designated him as one of a nineteen-member Group of Eminent Persons. Among the most recent of his some fifty books are The Catholic Church: A Short History (2002), a chronicle of the Church as a world power and a call for it to adapt to modern needs, and Der Anfang aller Dinge (The Beginning of All Things), a discussion of the relationship between science and religion and the origin of the universe, of life, and of humanity, which was published by Piper in 2005 and will be published by Wm. Eerdmans later this year.