New take on the Prodigal Son?

Fr. Charles Curran was a moral theologian fired from his position at the Catholic University of America in 1986 for asserting a right of dissent from official church teaching on matters such as birth control.
Summoned to appear in Rome for questioning by Cardinal Ratzinger, he came out of the meeting knowing that he had failed to convince. He would be condemned as a Catholic theologian and fired from his faculty position: a public humiliation, a personal disaster, and also a rejection of theologians as a whole, who by and large agreed with Curran’s position.
The next day was Sunday. Bernard Häring, the influential moral theologian who taught in Rome and was Curran’s old professor and mentor, celebrated Mass in a chapel for Curran and his six university advisers. The Gospel happened to be the Prodigal Son. Häring’s homily went something like this: at this time, the church is the prodigal son. It is taking your treasure — your training, talent, reputation, contribution — and wasting it, feeding it to the pigs. The Spirit of Jesus calls you to be the father in this parable, not rejecting but welcoming back the prodigal. Do you forgive the church?
Häring went from person to person, grabbing them by the necktie or the sweater, and looked them in the eye with this question. The Mass could not continue until they wrestled with their anger and allowed the Spirit to move them to a different place.

From an article in the National Catholic Reporter online: Theologian Elizabeth Johnson: 'Drench anger with forgiveness'