Is the Pope purging conservative cardinals?
Journalists and liberal Roman Catholics are making much — perhaps too much — of Pope Francis’ decision to remove a conservative American cardinal from the congregation that helps choose bishops. The New York Times said that the pope “moved … against” Cardinal Raymond Burke by not reappointing him to the Congregation of Bishops. That makes the decision to (in effect) replace Burke with Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., sound more punitive than it might be.
It’s true, however, that Burke is the darling of “rad trad” (radical traditionalist) Catholics and a bete noire for liberals. In 2004, Burke made it clear that John F. Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights, wouldn’t be welcome to take Holy Communion in his archdiocese; Wuerl (and Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in Los Angeles) took a more accommodating position on the Communion question.
Burke recently gave an interview in which he seemed to question Francis’ comments about the church speaking too often and too obsessively about social issues. “One gets the impression, or it’s interpreted this way in the media, that [the pope] thinks we’re talking too much about abortion, too much about the integrity of marriage as between one man and one woman,” Burke told EWTN, the conservative Catholic media outlet. “But we can never talk enough about that.”
www.latimes.com/…/la-ol-pope-burk…
