Thursday 28th March 2024

Home » Frontpage » Currently Reading:

Non-renewal of Burke and Rigali raises eyebrows

December 23, 2013 Frontpage No Comments

By Robert Moynihan

(Reprinted with permission from Inside The Vatican Magazine)

Pope Francis has Vatican-watchers turning somersaults as they parse his every decision in an attempt to gauge the direction he may lead the Church.

Today those somersaults almost became back-flips, as a re-shuffling of the membership of the Holy See’s Congregation for Bishops — which chooses all Catholic bishops for the Latin rite around the world — sparked an outpouring of  analysis in the blogosphere. Much of this analysis centered on the non-renewal of the American cardinal, Raymond Burke, considered a liturgical “conservative,” as a member of the Congregation.

Official Portrait of Cardinal Burke. sourceOfficial Portrait of Cardinal Burke. source

The conclusion tended to be that Pope Francis wants a more “progressive” Congregation in order to choose more “progressive” bishops. (To select Catholic bishops, the local Nuncio in each country chooses three candidates, called the terna, and forwards the names to Rome; the Roman Congregation of Bishops considers the names, and often approves the top candidate of the three, but not always. The composition of the Congregation is studied carefully by Vatican-watchers looking for “progressive” or “conservative” trends in Rome.)

But this conclusion may be based on an agenda-driven thought process rather than on a true understanding of what Pope Francis is trying to do. One key concern, it would seem, was to include men whom the Pope knows personally, men like Stella, Baldisseri, Koch, Ortega, Gomez and Braz de Aviz.

The official Vatican communique today said the Pope had:

  • Confirmed as Prefect Cardinal Marc Ouellet;
  • Named as members the cardinals: Francisco Robles Ortega, Archbishop of  Guadalajara (Mexico); Donald William Wuerl, Archbishop di Washington (USA); Rubén Salazar Gómez, Archbishop of Bogotá (Colombia); Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity; João Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; and Monsignors: Pietro Parolin, titular Archbishop of Acquapendente, Segretary of State; Beniamino Stella, titular Archbishop of Midila, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy; Lorenzo Baldisseri, titular Archbishop of Diocleziana, Segretary General of the Synod of Bishops; Vincent Gerard Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster (Great Britain); Paolo Rabitti, Archbishop emeritus of Ferrara-Comacchio (Italy); Gualtiero Bassetti, Archbishop of Perugia-Città della Pieve (Italy); Felix Genn, Bishop of Münster (Germany);
  • Confirmed as members Cardinals: Tarcisio Bertone, Zenon Grocholewski, George Pell, Agostino Vallini, Antonio Cañizares Llovera, André Vingt-Trois, Jean-Louis Tauran, William Joseph Levada, Leonardo Sandri, Giovanni Lajolo, Stanisław Ryłko, Francesco Monterisi, Santos Abril y Castelló, Giuseppe Bertello, Giuseppe Versaldi; and Monsignors: Claudio Maria Celli, José Octavio Ruiz Arenas, Zygmunt Zimowski;
  • Confirmed the Consultors.

 

Robert Mickens, writing for The Tablet of London, observes: “Pope Francis has re-confirmed Cardinal Marc Ouellet PSS, 69, as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, an office he has headed since 2010. But the Pope today also significantly altered the Congregation’s membership by replacing three leading conservatives – including US Cardinal Raymond Burke, 65.” (link)

 

Gerard O’Connell, writing for Vatican Insider of Turin’s La Stampa newspaper, put the matter this way: “Apart from the new appointments, surely the most striking aspect of the Pope’s decision was the non-confirmation of several very highly influential members of the congregation, among them the American cardinals Raymond Burke and Justin Rigali, the Italian cardinals Mauro Piacenza and Angelo Bagnasco, and the Spanish cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela.”
O’Connell continued: “From the perspective of the Catholic Church in the USA, the non-confirmation of Cardinals Rigali and Burke is particularly significant.  Sources say Rigali, who stepped down as archbishop of Philadelphia in 2011, had played a major role in the selection of bishops for dioceses in the USA for some two decades.  Likewise, Cardinal Burke, the head of the Vatican’s Highest Tribunal — the Signatura Apostolica — and a leading figure in the conservative wing of the Church, had become a most influential player in the selection of US bishops ever since Benedict XVI appointed him to that congregation in 2009.”

 

David Gibson, writing for Religion News Service, under the title “In Rome, an American rises and another American fades,” characterizes Burke as “a very conservative holdover from the Benedict XVI era and a fan of the kind of high liturgical finery that Pope Francis does not take to, at all.”

 

Gibson’s “take” is that there is a kind of “rivalry” between the more conservative Burke and the more progressive Wuerl, and that Francis has “dropped Burke from the Congregation for Bishops and added Wuerl.” Gibson writes: “The two cardinals are not known to be allies, to say the least. It’s even less likely now that they’ll be exchanging Christmas cards this year.” (link)

 

Joshua McElwee of The National Catholic Reporter noted another twist in the tale. Burke a few days ago gave an interview to EWTN television (last Thursday) in which Burke says “he does not understand why the Pope does not focus more on opposing abortion.” (link) The implication is that Burke is mildly critical of Pope Francis, and that, a few days after making these mild criticisms, he was not reappointed as a member of the Bishops’ Congrgation.

 

This is certainly wrong. The decision about who to appoint, who to renew, and who not to renew, was taken long before last week.

 

Moreover, reading any personnel decision of the Pope as a clear indication of his own theological position, for example, on a matter like the liturgy (in other words, that Francis is opposed to the old liturgy because he did not reappoint Burke to the Bishops’ Congregation), is unlikely.

 

Francis has given us enough evidence of his respect for the Eastern rite (the Byzantine rite, which has much in common with the Tridentine rite), for example, that it seems clear he has not intention of reversing Pope Benedict’s decision to “rehabilitate” the old Latin rite with Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007.

 

There are many factors which came into play in the Pope’s decision on who to appoint to the Congregation for Bishops; to reduce the decision to a “purge” of the liturgically “conservative” Burke is a reductionist mis-reading of Francis’s intent.

 “A Kind of Unpredictability”

 

That said, it is very interesting to read excerpts from the Cardinal Burke EWTN interview from last Thursday (transcribed here.)

 

The interview starts with a discussion of the recent book by Burke, Divine Love Made FleshThe Holy Eucharist as the Sacrament of Charity. Then there is a discussion of Pope Francis.

 

Raymond Arroyo, the EWTN news host, then asks Burke about those who would like the Church to stop talking about abortion and gay marriage, and who say that Pope Francis explicitly urged Catholics to “stick to the essentials.”

 

Burke replies:

Well I, the Pope’s statement, it doesn’t state that. In fact it’s a text that’s not altogether easy to interpret. But my response is, what could be more essential than the natural moral law? In other words, these are, these acts that are always and everywhere evil, they’re the first commands of our conscience, to respect human life, to respect the integrity of the family, and to respect conscience. And so, to me the Pope can’t be saying, I can’t interpret that phrase of his, as saying that these are not essentials. I’m not exactly sure why he mentioned it. One gets the impression, or it’s interpreted this way in the media, that he thinks we’re talking too much about abortion, too much about the integrity of marriage as between one man and one woman. But we can never talk enough about that! As long as in our society innocent and defenseless human life is being attacked in a most savage way, I mean, it’s literally a massacre of the unborn, when this is extending now to those… to the aged, to those who are, have chronic illnesses, to those who are severely handicapped, and also to the whole question of creating human embryos artificially in order to destroy them, or in experimentation: we can never talk enough about that, because if we don’t get this straight, that human life, innocent and defenseless human life is an inviolable dignity, how are we going to understand anything else correctly with regard to care of the sick or whatever it might be?

 

 

One senses here the confusion that Francis’s teaching has caused even in the Roman Curia.

 

Burke acknowledges here that he “is not exactly sure” why Francis said he wished to speak about other matters besides abortion, marriage and euthanasia. It seems clear that Francis has, indeed, said that concentrating solely on moral teachings, even fundamental ones, is not his deepest vision for the proclamation of the Gospel.

 

Francis wants to speak more about Christ and his person, life and mission, in order to draw all toward Christ, and through Christ, toward goodness, that is, toward love of and respect for the moral law. Arroyo then asks about Francis’s plans to reform the Roma Curia.

 

Again Burke reveals his uncertainty.

Well, it’s not altogether clear to me exactly what the result of the reforms is going to be,” Burke said. “The Pope has had meetings, they’re talking about the reorganization of the Roman Curia. But so far, I haven’t seen anything concretely of what that will be. I’ve made the statement, and I believe that it’s correct, that I cannot imagine a reform of the Roman Curia which would not somehow be continuous with Pastor bonus, the apostolic constitution which has governed the Roman Curia since I think 1988, when Blessed John Paul II reformed the Roman Curia, because the Church is an organic body, and the service of the Roman Curia is part of the very nature of the Church, and so that has to be respected. So I can’t imagine that somehow the Roman Curia is going to take on a completely different figure. It just doesn’t make sense.

 

Again, one senses here what must be a widespread sense among the officials in the Roman Curia about what Francis may choose to do in his attempt to “reform” the Curia.

 

Arroyo then says, “Speaking of the papal household, Archbishop Georg Gänswein is quoted in a German magazine. He said ‘It is an…’ — and he is talking about being the personal secretary to both the former Pope, Pope Benedict, as well as Pope Francis — and he said this: ‘It is an ache, finding my way with the new role. I have the impression I live in two worlds. I wait every day for another innovation, what will be different.’ Have you ever experienced any of that?”

 

And Burke replies:

Well, there is, I mean, I don’t think this is anything that isn’t clear to everybody, there is a kind of unpredictability about life in Rome in these days. It seems to be a question of a certain style, and every Holy Father is different. So it is quite distinct from Pope Benedict who was, who attended very much to a certain protocol, and also to a certain discipline of schedule and so forth, so there is an element of that, that’s clear.

 

Again, one sees in these words the mood that may be shared by many in Rome today, that there is “a kind of unpredictability about life in Rome in these days.”

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Abortion Advocates No Longer Consider It “A Necessary Evil,” They Celebrate Killing Babies

Last week, Kamala Harris became the first vice president in U.S. history to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Though the Democratic party’s support for abortion is nothing new, Harris’ Planned Parenthood appearance does illustrate how that support has become a flagrant celebration of abortion as a public and personal good, essential to both “freedom” and to “healthcare.” At the appearance, Harris proclaimed,  It is only right and fair that people have access…Continue Reading

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)