ROME — La Repubblica, a high-circulation Italian daily, asked Raymond Cardinal Burke if it would be wrong to ask for Pope Francis’ resignation, as the former nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has done in his 11-page letter. Cardinal Burke responded, “I cannot say it is wrong,” according to an August 29 Repubblica article. America magazine picked up the story.
“I can only say that to arrive at this one must investigate and respond in this regard. The request for resignation is in any case licit; anyone can make it in the face of whatever pastor that errs greatly in the fulfillment of his office, but the facts need to be verified,” he said in the interview with La Repubblica.
Cardinal Burke has joined the growing group of bishops speaking up in defense of Archbishop Viganò’s letter.
“I was deeply shaken because the entire document is most grave,” Burke said in the interview. “I had to read it several times because the first reading left me speechless. I believe that at this point there is need for a complete and objective report on the part of the Pope and the Vatican.”
Archbishop Viganò’s letter affirms that there are cardinals and bishops who want to change the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. Cardinal Burke commented: “Yes, there are attempts to relativize the teaching of the Church according to which a homosexual act is intrinsically bad.” Furthermore, he described as “a problem” the “support that churchmen give to the Jesuit James Martin, who has an ‘open’ and wrong position on homosexuality.”
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