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| “Bye-bye Conservative Catholics!” |
Pope Francis is “cleaning house” by getting rid of conservative influences in the Vatican.
About a year ago, I noted that “Pope Francis” intended to “intended to clean house” – it’s been happening – this past week, we saw the second “shot across the bow” as Cardinal Raymond Burke, the conservative Cardinal (formerly of Bryan Cross’s hometown of St. Louis), has received his second “demotion” in less than a year.
This time, Burke lost his post as “the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura (the Vatican’s highest court)”. This is one of two crucially high positions at the Vatican. Roman Catholicism is run first of all by its doctrine (and the overseer of doctrine is the “Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith” – formerly the “Holy Office” and prior to that “the Inquisition”). But on a day-to-day level, it is run by “Church Law”, otherwise known as “the Code of Canon Law”. Burke was the “Prefect” for “Canon Law”.
He is being moved to be “patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta”, surely an “honorary” post at best, and in real life, a move that is likely to be as close to an insult as you can get at this level of the Roman Catholic Church.
But Burke is not just Burke; he represents multiple conservative Cardinals – these include his close associates and co-authors Cardinals Gerhard Müller, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Walter Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences; Carlo Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna, Italy; and Velasio De Paolis, president emeritus of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs of the Holy See, - "five Cardinals of the Church, and four other scholars, [who responded negatively] to the call issued by Cardinal Walter Kasper for the Church to harmonize "fidelity and mercy in its pastoral practice with civilly remarried, divorced people".
Last year, it was reported that Burke lost his position as the head of the influential “Congregation for Bishops” council, which is responsible for choosing the individuals who the pope will then name to become bishops. From the story last year:
Cardinal Raymond Burke's departure from the Congregation of Bishops council and his subsequent replacement by the more moderate Wuerl is being viewed by some as Pope Francis moving the Catholic church away from combating hot-button social issues and focusing on a more pastoral approach. Burke is a strong opponent of same-sex marriage and abortion, and has in the past said that moderates like Wuerl were "weakening the faith."
Burke has been a vocal advocate against the “reforms” of Pope Francis, which not only have been seeking to “welcome gays” but to re-think virtually all of the “theology of the body” that Pope John Paul II put into place during his long pontificate.
Here is just one Q/A from a recent (last Tuesday) interview with Burke:
Interviewer: One reported discussion was about changing the language of some terms such as “living in sin,” “contraceptive mentality” and “intrinsically disordered.” It was said there was a “great desire” to alter the language and make it more “inclusive,” but there was no criticism of this reported, which many found surprising.
Burke: I was not able to say so publicly, but I have quoted John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, when he says we have to call things by their proper name. He properly called abortion murder, which it is. And here, now, some want to say cohabitation is not living in sin. Well, what is fornication or adultery? And the same thing with regard to same-sex relations, which have come up. Some do not want to talk about disordered acts. Well, what is a homosexual act? It is disordered. And how am I being kind — if you are beset by this inclination and do these acts — how am I being charitable to you by calling the acts by some other name or by giving the impression that there are good aspects to the acts?
That is the other thing. Some are saying that we need to find the good aspects of de facto unions and homosexual unions. What are the good aspects of unchaste acts? There cannot be.
For further reading:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/18/conservative-us-cardinal-demoted-pope-raymond-burke
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/rome-synod-family-homosexuality/?print=1
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/3449/cardinal_burke_to_cwr_confirms_transfer_praises_pushback_addresses_controversy_over_remarks_by_cardinal_kasper.aspx
“New paradigms of divorce and homosexuality are now at home in the highest levels of the Church. Nothing has been decided, but Pope Francis is patient.”
This gives new meaning to Bryan Cross’s “agape paradigm”.
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