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American Cardinal Raymond Burke, a darling
of conservative Catholics who is virulently anti-
gay, has confirmed to BuzzFeed what rumors
from Rome have said for weeks. He will be
demoted by Pope Francis from the head of
the Roman Catholic Church's version of the
Supreme Court to a figurehead role as the
Patron of the Knights of Malta, a chivalrous
order known for its work among the sick.
This is not the first demotion for Burke, who
was dropped by Francis almost a year ago
from an important Vatican bureau that selects
bishops around the world. Burke was replaced
on The Congregation for Bishops by Cardinal
Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., who,
while also conservative, does not use the
inflammatory rhetoric that has made Burke a
favorite of the far-right in the Catholic
Church.
Burke recently told an interviewer that legally-
married gay and lesbian family members
should be shunned from family celebrations
during the upcoming holidays, asking “what
would it mean to grandchildren to have
present at a family gathering a family
member who is living [in] a disordered
relationship with another person?”
Burke's strong criticism of a preliminary
document that included more inclusive
welcoming of LGBT community members in
the life of the Church and his challenge to
Francis, who is seen to have had a hand in
the drafting of the document, were apparently
the last straw for the Pope.
Francis recently replaced outspoken Chicago
Cardinal Francis George with the more
conciliatory Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane,
Washington, a major promotion for the 65-
year-old native of Omaha, Nebraska.
Admittedly, George was two-and-a-half years
beyond the age of 75, when bishops and
cardinals submit their resignations to the
pope. However, some cardinals have been kept
on the job until age 80 when they lose their
right to vote in the conclave that selects a new
pope after the death or resignation of the
reigning pontiff.
These moves are thought by Vatican watchers
to be signs that Francis wants to tone down
the attacks on communities that are
marginalized by the Catholic Church,
including LGBT parishioners and divorced and
pro-choice Catholics. Burke is a major
proponent of the Latin Mass and is known for
his fondness of clerical garb that went out of
style following the Second Vatican Council in
the 1960s, which attempted to modernize the
Church in worship and its relationship to Jews
and to other Christian faiths. Burke opposes
those reforms and his move to Rome from St.
Louis, where he served as archbishop, was seen
as a sign of favor by the ultra-conservative
Pope Benedict XVI.
Burke's influence on the Congregation for
Bishops was seen in the naming of several
controversial choices in major positions in the
American Catholic Church, including Salvatore
Cordileone, the Church's leader in the
successful Prop 8 movement that reversed
marriage equality in California, from
Oakland to San Francisco, an obvious thumb
in the eye of the large LGBT community there.
In Chicago, Cupich will take over from George
in November. While, for example, Cupich
opposes marriage equality, in Spokane he is
one of the rare U.S. Church leaders to speak
out against attempts “to incite hostility
towards homosexual persons or promote an
agenda that is hateful and disrespectful of
their human dignity.” Cupich wrote in a
pastoral letter that was read in all Catholic
parishes in the diocese, “It is deplorable that
homosexual persons have been and are the
object of violent malice in speech or in action.
Such treatment deserves condemnation from
the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs.”
The first major appointment of an American
Archbishop tipped Francis' hand as to how he
wanted a change of tone among the hierarchy
in the U.S. He named the affable Bishop
Bernard Hebda, who had served as head of
the diocese of Gaylord, Michigan for only four
years, to be co-adjutor bishop with right of
succession to the authoritarian and
controversial Newark Archbishop John Myers,
in 2016 when Myers turns 75.
How long Francis will have to change the
leadership of the U.S. Catholic Church remains
to be seen, as the vast majority of current
ecclesial office-holders were appointed by
conservatives John Paul II and Benedict XVI over
a 35-year period. In his initial choices, Francis
is veering slightly left in tenor. However, it is
doubtful that any change in doctrine will be
put in place during the remaining years of
his pontificate.
Image from wikimedia
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