Bad day for American rightwing evangelical converts to Catholicism, good day for the Church. https://t.co/bSXPjcPjA0 — Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 28, 2023 I left The Chuch fifty years ago (the day after my parochial school graduation, held as part of a mandatory Mass). But it still tickles me when ‘radical traditionalists’ discover that Papa Francis …
Cardinal Burke has seen himself as a loyal defender of the church’s doctrinal law and papal traditions against what he has called the “confusion, error and division” caused by Francis.
In the days before a major assembly of the world’s bishops and laypeople who had gathered to discuss some of the most sensitive topics in the church, Cardinal Burke and other traditionalist prelates made public an exchange of letters with Francis. In the letters, they aired grave doubts about the legitimacy of the meeting and urged Francis to slam the door shut on proposals that they believe would erode the doctrine of the church, including the blessing of same-sex unions.
Then Cardinal Burke recently sat onstage in a Rome theater and, at a forum sponsored by La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, inveighed against an assembly that has the “harmful goal” of reshaping the hierarchy of the church with radical, secular and modern ideas that included inclusivity of L.G.B.T.Q. people…
A favorite of Benedict XVI, Cardinal Burke, who was previously best known for denying communion to John Kerry during the politician’s 2004 presidential campaign, has clashed with Francis repeatedly, even in choice of vestments. Unlike Francis, who preferred more modest priests, Cardinal Burke occasionally wore a long train of watered silk, velvet gloves and extravagant brocades that once prompted Vatican officials to ask him to “tone it down a bit.”
On issues the two are far apart. Cardinal Burke opposed immigration as a threat to the West’s Christian values, vigorously opposed Francis’ softening on gay issues and church laws, and played in populist politics in Italy and abroad. He became a hero to the “Rad Trads,” or radical traditionalists…
Over the last decade, Cardinal Burke, 75, has expressed doubts about the pope’s grasp on church teaching and accused him of alienating church law-abiding conservatives with his inclusive stance.
A populist fan of European nationalists and former President Donald J. Trump, he rarely missed an opportunity to excoriate the pope’s politics, especially his welcoming of L.G.B.T.Q. people and immigration…
For this group of trans women in Italy, Pope Francis and his message of inclusivity are a welcome change.
And thanks to the local parish priest, these women now make monthly visits to Francis’ Wednesday general audiences, where they are given VIP seats. pic.twitter.com/jHmiXJovnh
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 21, 2023
There’s not actually a whole lot of wiggle room in the official definition…
… When the Pope (1) intends to teach (2) by virtue of his supreme authority (3) on a matter of faith and morals (4) to the whole Church, he is preserved by the Holy Spirit from error. His teaching act is therefore called “infallible” and the teaching which he articulates is termed “irreformable”…
… but Cardinal Burke has two thousand years of sophistry and rules-lawyering behind him:
Common Cardinal Burke W pic.twitter.com/wqO5csGyJW
— Pinesap🌲✝️☦️🇻🇦 (@Pinesap3wasc) November 20, 2023
To my cynical mind, Cardinal Burke isn’t gonna do much more than keep bitching about how the world is passing him by. But the last American prelate disciplined, Bishop Joseph Strickland (formerly) of Tyler, Texas, might well attempt to use Burke as a figurehead in his future attempts to start his own private American papacy. It’ll be interesting to watch, from a safe distance, but I suspect there’s too much competition from homegrown American evangelical churches to give the ‘Catholic’ RadTrads much running room — and the global Mother Church has many generations of practice at stomping out would-be insurrections who want a piece of the very profitable action.