IMAGE CREDIT Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons - cc-by-sa-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsLINKS Vatican bio of Cardinal Kurt KOCH: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_koch_k.html         Kurt KOCH on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda): https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2010.htm#Koch      Cardinal Kurt KOCH on Gcatholic.org: https://gcatholic.org/p/4021                         Cardinal Kurt KOCH on Catholic-Hierarchy.org: https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bkoch.html    Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity on Gcatholic.org: https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/romancuria/d16.htm  Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity on Catholic-Hierarchy.org: https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dxpcu.html Basel Cathedral website discussing the canons: https://www.bistum-basel.ch/news/drei-neue-domherren-eingesetzt La Repubblica 1995 article on Bishop Vogel’s resignation and son: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1995/06/03/il-vescovo-si-dimette-aspetto-un.html  Nostra Aetate: https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html 2012 Catholic News Service overview of Cardinal Koch's comments on conservative Catholics and Judaism (archived via Library of Congress Web Archives): https://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20121205205921/http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1202023.htm    Thank you for listening, and thank my family and friends for putting up with the time investment and for helping me out as needed. As always, feel free to email the show at Popeularhistory@gmail.com  If you would like to financially support Popeular history, go to www.patreon.com/Popeular. If you don't have any money to spare but still want to give back, pray and tell others– prayers and listeners are worth more than gold!   TRANSCRIPT Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.   Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.   Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.   Kurt KOCH was born on March 15, 1950, Emmenbrücke a town just north of the middle of Switzerland, in the Canton of Lucerne.   Cardinal Koch is the second Swiss-born Cardinal we've met after Cardinal Tscherrig, the Nuncio’s Nuncio we met last summer. But at the time we had dozens of countries involved, because, well, nuncio's nuncio, and didn't get a chance to just talk Switzerland.   These days Switzerland is famous for their neutrality, staying out of pretty much every conflict they can avoid. Perhaps that’s in part due to the fact that it used to be a battleground, especially in the rolling conflicts between the Popes in Italy and the Holy Roman Emperors in Germany. When the Reformation came, Switzerland was again divided in loyalty between largely Catholic southern Europe and largely Protestant northern Europe. One of the fruits of conflict, for better or for worse, is military skill, which is how the Swiss Guard that still protects the Vatican today came about. Fortunately, like I mentioned, the Swiss came to embrace neutrality, including in religion, with laws allowing for freedom of conscience–first just among Christian denominations and then more broadly. Keep this context  of conflict to resolution in the back of your mind as we go.    Kurt Koch studied Theology at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland, then went to Munich Germany to study more theology, getting a diploma in theology in 1975. He served as a research assistant at the University of Lucerne from ‘76 to ‘81, presumably while studying even More theology, and soon after he was ordained a priest for his home Diocese of Basel in 1982. This is actually the first time I've seen someone ordained apparently without any specific philosophy training, going pure theology isn't as no