(RNS) When Pope Francis last year effectively demoted U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke by moving him out of a senior post in the Vatican to a largely ceremonial role as head of a Rome-based Catholic charity, it was viewed as a way to sideline one of the pontiff’s most outspoken critics on the right.
But the move seems to have left Burke free to air his conservative — and pointed — views on efforts to change church practices, not that he was ever terribly hesitant about speaking his mind.
Now the American churchman has spoken out again, telling an interviewer that gay couples and divorced and remarried Catholics who are trying to live good and faithful lives are still like “the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people.”
“If you are living publicly in a state of mortal sin there isn’t any good act that you can perform that justifies that situation: the person remains in grave sin,” Burke said in an interview with LifeSiteNews, a U.S.-based web service focused on battling abortion and promoting other conservative causes.
“And to give the impression that somehow there’s something good about living in a state of grave sin is simply contrary to what the (Catholic) Church has always and everywhere taught,” said Burke, who spoke to LifeSiteNews in Rome.
Asked if being “kind” and “generous” and “dedicated” is enough, Burke replied: “Of course it’s not. It’s like the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people.”
The lengthy interview was published on Tuesday (March 24).
On the surface, Burke’s comments break little theological ground; the church has always taught that sin is sin, and some sins are especially serious. For example, cohabitation, homosexual relations and adultery (which is how the Catholic Church views the relations of a couple who are divorced and remarried without annulling the first marriage) are viewed as mortal sins, as is murder.
But comparing those situations in any context is unusual, and certainly out of step with the pastoral tone that Francis has set in his papacy. Moreover, reformers argue that a murderer — or almost any other sinner — can go to confession, receive absolution, and take Communion in a state of grace. But there is no such option for a gay person or those who are divorced and remarried, except permanent celibacy.
The cardinal’s comments take on added weight in the context of the increasingly heated debate that Francis opened over how the church should respond to rapid changes in family life in the modern world.
The issues were heatedly debated at a global summit of bishops and cardinals at the Vatican last October, and the debates have continued as both sides jockey for position ahead of a follow-up synod this October. Those who back reforms in church practices and attitudes — especially toward gay couples and those who are divorced or cohabiting — are opposed by those who see any changes as tantamount to undermining doctrine.
During last fall’s synod, several high-ranking churchmen spoke about the lives of unmarried or remarried couples as having value that the church should recognize.
Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, for example, repeatedly stressed that the church should “look at the person and not the sexual orientation.” He cited the case of a gay couple he knew in which one partner cared for the other through a long-term illness in a way that was “exemplary. Full stop.”
Similarly, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, a senior adviser to Francis, said that “one simply cannot say that a faithful homosexual relationship that has held for decades is nothing.”
“We just mustn’t lump things together and measure everything with the same yardstick, but must differentiate and take a closer look, which doesn’t mean that I endorse homosexuality as a whole,” he said.
But such language sounded alarm bells for traditionalists like Burke, who after the synod was named to the largely ceremonial post of patron of the Order of the Knights of Malta. In his earlier post in the Roman Curia, Burke was automatically included in the synod discussions; he will probably not take part in this fall’s meeting.
In this latest interview, he repeated his earlier claims that reformers were manipulating the synod discussions and waging a media campaign “to justify extra-marital sexual relations and sexual acts between persons of the same sex” that would undermine church teaching.
Burke, 66, has raised eyebrows, and made headlines, with previous comments. Earlier this year, he argued that the church has become too “feminized” and he blamed the introduction of altar girls more than 20 years ago for the decline in vocations to the church’s all-male priesthood.
The cardinal also blamed gay clergy for the church’s sexual abuse crisis, saying priests “who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity” were the ones who molested children.
I invite anyone reading this particular article on Cardinal Burke to read the source material and not this article from RNS. It’s a clearly biased piece, and it grossly misleads the reader on an important theological point.
Also, for anyone interested on a less-biased and in-context analysis of the issue of the “feminized” Church, please read this — http://mtncatholic.com/2015/01/11/enough-bashing-cardinal-burke-heres-what-he-really-said/
The cardinal refers to “men who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity” in discussing the abuse scandal. You point out that he doesn’t use the word “homosexual.” But men who are “feminized” (what does this mean? I think I’m that kind of man a decent amount of the time, honestly) and “confused about their own sexual identity” (I don’t feel especially confused; that’s how I know I’m, to some degree, “feminized,” by which I simply mean I have traditionally feminine as well as masculine personality traits) don’t deserve to be directly associated with abuse any more than any other generally innocent people group.
And then there’s simply the possibility that “men who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity” is code for gay. Seriously, that’s not a huge stretch at all.
Also, here’s a “feminized” man who is perhaps unusually open about his way of being. And his marriage and life sound wonderful. http://www.npr.org/2015/04/03/397089146/longtime-couple-found-that-clothes-didnt-make-the-man?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150403
Finally, it’s interesting that you suggest the writer is biased and (on your blog) that mainstream media cover these topics poorly, since this writer “has written two books on Catholic topics, the latest a biography of Pope Benedict XVI.”
Neal, I’ll have to consider longer the answers to your other comments, but to address this one briefly — Just because a person writes books on a given topic doesn’t make them an expert, a good writer, or even a person who understands that topic. Far from it.
Many bad books have been written on any number of topics, but those authors could have lent themselves credibility by saying they wrote books on “X topic” just as this author has portrayed himself.