Pope Francis has decided to punish one of his highest-ranking critics, Cardinal Raymond Burke, by revoking his right to a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary in the second such radical action against a conservative American prelate this month, according to two people briefed on the measures.
Francis told a meeting of the heads of Vatican offices last week that he was moving against Burke because he was a source of “disunity” in the church, said one of the participants at the Nov. 20 meeting. The participant spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal the contents of the encounter.
Francis said he was removing Burke’s privileges of having a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary as a retired cardinal because he was using the privileges against the church, said another person who was subsequently briefed on the pope’s measures. That person also spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to reveal the details.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a schism at some point. American Catholicism is being influenced greatly by evangelical Christianity and the political project that exists around that.
I can’t wait to use the word “antipope” in a modern context.
Oh oh…better yet how about the Dark Pope
Or the Anti-Pope. 😈
The American catholics who i know love Francis and think it’s taken too long to get him. Anecdotal, but I think the Dallas based church would have difficulty convincing local parishes that the Catholic pope is now misinformed and the new bigot really speaks for God
I think you’re vastly underestimating how much the Nationalist Christian demographic gets pumped up by their hour of hate. They’ve got a persecution fetish.
Nationalist Christian demographic
Sure they’d love him, but they’re also not Catholic.
I beg to differ. I know several who are, unfortunately.
Remember anecdote should not be treated as empirical.
I know some Catholics that may as well be evangelicals with extra steps, but I know more that are far from it. It happens to be that the ones that aren’t essentially evangelicals are just quiet about it.
As someone who went to a Catholic school in Dallas, I don’t share your optimism. I hope you’re right, though.
I don’t doubt he’ll get churches in his old diocese, I’m doubtful that it’ll have far reaching consequences, though.
A handful of relatives at Thanksgiving wanted to have a conversation/diatribe about what the pope was doing wrong but hey look, I’m gonna go stand over here instead.
So Catholics with a basic and fundamental misunderstanding of how the church functions and the power of their head of church. Such great Catholics
If there is one thing true about all catholics is how selectively they practice their religion. It’s more like a buffet, not a planned meal.
There are actually schismatic churches right now. Mel Gibson and his father are members. Iirc they left because of Vatican II, and JP2 was too liberal for them. Mel apparently has a chapel on his property and a priest of that sect says the Latin Mass there.
I think I read about it when he said that anti-Semitic stuff after getting pulled over.
Once, it was Rome and Avignon. Will it be Vatican and Dallas now?
Rome and Rome, Georgia
Vatican City. Rome is the capital of Italy. But if there is another Rome in Georgia, it could work.
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Imagine being an American so privileged and revered you get paid to live in Italy in one of the most historically iconic places on Earth…
… and you throw it all away so you can hate on gay people and vaccines. Wtf.
The best part is Catholics believe the pope is chosen by god. This guy thinks god is wrong. So basically this guy is so far up his own arse that even gay people would frown upon him
Nah, the pope is chosen by people, that supposedly have a very good connection to god (Cardinals). He is supposedly gods mouthpiece on earth tho, so your point still stands.
The Pope is considered infallible correct? So American priests think the Pope is wrong. Some Henry the eighth shit right there.
IIRC, the Pope is only considered infallible when they say they are. Otherwise they’re just speaking as the highest ranking member. So most of the time what they say is not treated by members of the clergy as the literal word of god.
Maybe other Catholics are more in the know, but this isn’t a distinction I was aware of when I was a practicing Catholic. That might be because the Pope really didn’t come up much at all. I’m sure he influenced policy, but his words seemed to come up in the news, and not really much outside that.
It’s more nuanced than that, but generally speaking papal infallibility today only extends to very limited circumstances where the Pope puts on his special papal infallibility hat and says, “I hereby decree…” some specific topic of church law.
I thought they believed that the pope was chosen by god through the cardinals, who have a very good connection to god? Is this not the explicit belief? I know it’s very similar and doesn’t really matter either way but there is some nuance there and I would like to know the answer for sure
It certainly is what the church’s elite wanted medieval people to believe. My experience says people don’t believe it anymore tho.
That experience is based on my living in Germany tho, so you might get completely different answers from people in southeast Asia or the Americas.
I wonder if an American Catholic schism is a possibility in the future.
It honestly feels imminent.
It feels like almost a certainty. The real fun part will be the Americans acting like the schism hasn’t happened while the rest of the world will be distinctly aware of the split.
Christ, they’ve only just learned about fascism and are throwing the word about like a hot potato; give them a moment to realise that doesn’t say “jism”
I suspect that we’d first see Catholics go to existing conservative Protestant demonizations. Some of them are quite extreme and would be welcoming to people holding the ideas the pope seems to be acting against.
I don’t know. It’s mostly the leadership in the US that has the beef. American catholics lean more and more left while the leadership leans right.
Tell that to my Catholic family who REALLY doesn’t like this pope or much of anything the church has done lately.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Burke, a 75-year-old canon lawyer whom Francis had fired as the Vatican’s high court justice in 2014, has become one of the most outspoken critics of the pope, his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and his reform project to make the church more responsive to the needs of ordinary faithful.
Then, on the eve of Francis’ big meeting of bishops last month, known as a synod, Burke presided over a counter-synod of sorts just steps away from St. Peter’s Square.
“It’s unfortunately very clear that the invocation of the Holy Spirit by some has the aim of bringing forward an agenda that is more political and human than ecclesial and divine,” Burke told the conference titled “The Synodal Babel.”
Burke, who spends much of his time in the U.S. at the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine he founded in his native Wisconsin, is the second American prelate to face punishment in what appears to be a new phase of Francis’ pontificate.
Asked Tuesday about word of Francis’ decision, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni didn’t deny the reports but referred questions to Burke.
During a 2021 airborne news conference, Francis lamented the vaccine “negationists” in the College of Cardinals, an apparent reference to Burke, who had just been hospitalized in the U.S. and placed on a ventilator with a serious bout of the virus.
The original article contains 804 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
prelate, n. a bishop or other high ecclesiastical dignitary.
TIL
Raymond Burke is a piece of shit.
Can’t the Pope force Burke into a monastery for an extended bout of prayer or something? Taking away his apartment and salary is a good step, but I’m sure Burke won’t have any trouble finding other financial backers. It just seems kind of weak.
