As the impeccable prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, he is on the verge of being demoted to the purely honorary role of “patron” of an order of knighthood. At the behest of Pope Francis
It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person, I welcome it. Ten years ago, just after death of John Paul II from Poland, the US conservative clergy were restless …
AFP Headline: New pope intervened against Kerry in US 2004 election campaign by Oui on April 20, 2005
Just spending some minutes to search for the facts on Internet, leads to a complete opposite view of what happened in Denver …
… and how the MSM and other conservative voices, misinterpret the issue to push forward their own agenda to smear Senator John Kerry as a pro-choice and pro-abortion politician. Any denial of Communion was and is extremely exaggerated, and part of the introduction of fear for the practising Catholics in their voting behavior. The extreme opinion was supported by a very small number of Catholic bishops.
Kerry unbowed on abortion issue
Vatican City – April 23, 2004 — Cardinal Francis Arinze told a Vatican news conference that pro-abortion Catholic politicians such as Mr Kerry were “not fit” to receive communion.
« click for more info
Cardinal Arinze: Pope's resignation was a 'surprise, like thunder' (Photo credit: CNS )But, across the Atlantic, an unabashed Mr Kerry said women’s rights “are just that: rights, not political weapons”.
The clash has refuelled the fiery debate over abortion in the US. US bishops have discretion in deciding who should receive communion, and several bishops, led by Archbishop Raymond Burke of St Louis, have warned they will not give Mr Kerry communion.
Vatican Diary: Exile to Malta for Cardinal Burke | Chiesa Espresso Repubblica |
VATICAN CITY – The “revolution” of Pope Francis in ecclesiastical governance is not losing its driving thrust. And so, as happens in every self-respecting revolution, the heads continue to roll for churchmen seen as deserving this metaphorical guillotine.
In his first months as bishop of Rome, pope Bergoglio immediately provided for the transfer to lower-ranking positions of three prominent curial figures: Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, and Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, considered for their theological and liturgical sensibilities among the most “Ratzingerian” of the Roman curia.
Another whose fate appears to be sealed is the Spanish archbishop of Opus Dei Celso Morga Iruzubieta, secretary of the congregation for the clergy, destined to leave Rome for an Iberian diocese not of the first rank.
But now an even more eminent decapitation seems to be on the way.
The next victim would in fact be the United States Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who from being prefect of the supreme tribunal of the apostolic signatura would not be promoted – as some are fantasizing in the blogosphere – to the difficult but prestigious see of Chicago, but rather demoted to the pompous – but ecclesiastically very modest – title of “cardinal patron” of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, replacing the current head, Paolo Sardi, who recently turned 80.
If confirmed, Burke’s exile would be even more drastic than the one inflicted on Cardinal Piacenza, who, transferred from the important congregation for the clergy to the marginal apostolic penitentiary, nevertheless remained in the leadership of a curial dicastery.
« click for more info
Thank you for reading Rorate, Your Eminence! (twitter Rorate Caeli)With the shakeup on the way, Burke would instead be completely removed from the curia and employed in a purely honorary position without any influence on the governance of the universal Church. This would be a move that seems to have no precedent.
When the Infallible is Fallible
by BooMan on Sun Nov 10th, 2013It’s funny to listen to conservative American Catholics try to cognitively process the things that Pope Francis says that they don’t agree with. Some examples:
- “He didn’t really mean what he said.”
- “When you’re speaking off the cuff, you are not infallible.”
- “The media distorted what he said. He didn’t say anything different from any other pope.”
- “He’s a Pope of Darkness, as told by prophesy.”
- “Some popes are terrible. I’m not saying that Francis is terrible. I’m just saying…”
If President Obama were the pope, it would be hilarious to see which conservative commentators used which of the above approaches to understanding him.
The pope has also taken a more progressive approach toward non-believers and members of the lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual (LGBT) community. “God’s mercy is limitless,” the Pope wrote in a letter to La Repubblica, an Italian secular newspaper. “The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.”
The Advocate, an LGBT-interest magazine also named Pope Francis its Person of the Year in 2013 after he told media, “If someone is gay and is looking for the Lord, who am I to judge him?” on the plane on his way back from the World Youth Day held in Brazil.
- My previous diaries about the Jesuit Bergoglio from Argentine: YES I WAS WRONG!
○ Jorge Videla’s Dirty War and Argentine’s Catholic Hierarchy
○ Vatican Gives Flat Denial On Bergoglio’s Complicity
