Posted on 09/24/2009 2:24:26 PM PDT by NYer
Edited on 09/24/2009 7:57:03 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
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The tug-of-war over Ted Kennedy's soul seems to be eternal.
In a speech last Friday night to a gathering of Catholic conservatives at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, an outspoken American archbishop now heading the Vatican version of the church's Supreme Court said that politicians who support gay marriage or abortion rights cannot receive sacraments without publicly repenting their ways:
"It is not possible to be a practicing Catholic and to conduct oneself in this manner," said Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, whom the pope transferred to Rome in 2008 after Burke's often-stormy tenure as archbishop of St. Louis.
"Neither Holy Communion nor funeral rites should be administered to such politicians," Burke said. "To deny these is not a judgment of the soul, but a recognition of the scandal and its effects."
The remarks come from an account of the 50-minute speech by Deal Hudson, director of InsideCatholic.com, a conservative Web site that hosted the Sept. 18 annual gala for some 200 supporters. (Among them: American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, the National Review's Kate O'Bierne, and Ed Whelan, head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.) Hudson was an adviser to the Bush White House on Catholic issues.
Burke's blast is not exactly a surprise, given his track record of sharp criticism of pro-choice Catholic politicians -- he has said they should be barred from taking Communion and has encouraged ministers who distribute the Eucharist to withhold it on their own initiative. Burke has not been shy about exhorting fellow bishops he sees as too lenient, either, as he did in this March interview with Operation Rescue's Randall Terry. (Burke later regretted that Terry had aired the videotape.) And he is a favorite speaker of Beltway conservatives, having given the keynote at last May's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
But for Burke, now a prominent official in the Vatican's judicial system, to -- in effect -- openly oppose the judgment of Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley (and most other bishops) regarding sacraments for Kennedy and other Catholic pols, and to, in effect, give aid and comfort to a Catholic right that has stepped up criticism of the hierarchy to fierce levels, is remarkable. Burke did not just say that politicians like Kennedy should not be provided a private funeral; he advocates denying them a funeral Mass at all.
Cardinal O'Malley earlier this month rejected that course of action "in the strongest terms," as he wrote in a blog post that was an unusually blunt response to critics of his decision to allow Kennedy a funeral Mass and to preside at it:
In his well-received speech last Friday -- the standing ovation lasted seven minutes -- Burke rejected such an approach."We will stop the practice of abortion by changing the law, and we will be successful in changing the law if we change people's hearts. We will not change hearts by turning away from people in their time of need and when they are experiencing grief and loss," O'Malley wrote.
"At times, even in the Church, zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another. These attitudes and practices do irreparable damage to the communion of the Church."
The reason Burke was removed from St. Louis was his refusal to abode by the canons prohibiting crossing into the jurisdictions of other hierarchs.
Are you certain about this? I have not read any such statement from the Vatican saying this was the reason why he was reassigned. You may be right, but I don't know if one can say that as certainly as you have without engaging in some form of gossip. Surely that court is not simply being stocked with exiles for bad behaviour?
I think you are also overstating the rest of your case a bit. I am not an expert, so I am not making any claim to definite knowledge, but I would be inclined to think that if we looked through the history of the Church we could find numerous examples of bishops criticising other hierarchs for their public actions, statements and policies, especially for particularly scandalous ones. Were there no Orthodox bishops who rebuked those who allowed the filioque to be used in their dioceses? Surely not. Since Kennedy's funeral was a nationally (globally?) watched and publicized event I cannot see how a bishop can actually be "intruding" into Boston's affairs simply by speaking about it, or even for criticising Boston's bishop for allowing it.
congratulations on joining the Church!
actually, since BXVI election, things have gotten much better, but obviously there is still quire a way to go. With more like youself, we are that much better a witness to the world.
also as people including clerics are not perfect, we will have these scandals, hopefully fewer.
Source?
It’s not about giving succor in an hour of need, as O’Malley is saying, but about promoting and encouraging and condoning these “Catholic” pols in their time of power and influence yielding. I can’t recall a time when O’Malley blasted Kennedy in his lifetime, or Kerry, or any of them. So let’s not try to turn it into a story about a grieving family.
“I don’t know if one can say that as certainly as you have without engaging in some form of gossip.”
Gossip? From the Vatican and among hierarchs, yours and ours? Heaven forefend!
“Source?”
Mine. The same ones who told me the heresiarch Martino was finished. If I recall correctly, no one believed that then either.
Gossip? From the Vatican and among hierarchs, yours and ours? Heaven forefend!
I am sure that there is gossip, but I don't think we should necessarily trust it. And I haven't even seen anything suggesting that the Vatican acted for the reasons you have given. It may have happened I suppose, but it would surprise me if that court was such a bad assignment that it was fully stocked with ecclesiastical ne'er-do-wells.
My question is an honest and temperate one. I take it that you are not citing yourself, but those who you know and trust, and who you would rather not name.
Fine.
In the end that means I cannot reliably repeat your judgement.
“I am sure that there is gossip, but I don’t think we should necessarily trust it.”
Sometimes that clerical/hierarchial “gossip” is pretty reliable. You needn’t credit it at all of course. Can you see how someone like Burke, disfavored among American hierarchs, a martinet and with a tendency to at least be perceived as a violator of the canons might become an embarrassment to the Vatican in other areas and with other people?
“...it would surprise me if that court was such a bad assignment that it was fully stocked with ecclesiastical ne’er-do-wells.”
All things considered, its probably not; no heavy lifting, that’s for sure and for someone with no pastoral ability it may have been viewed as a safe backwater. That said, there is a tradition of getting problematic American hierarchs, especially prominent ones, out of the country and off to Rome. Cardinal Law’s appointment to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, with the title of “Archpriest” springs to mind.
“In the end that means I cannot reliably repeat your judgement.”
OK
We don’t know if Kennedy is in hell or not. Perhaps he received the Sacrament of the Annointing of the Sick and went to Confession. Thence, he would be in Purgatory -— for a loooooong time.
Only God knows.
Archbishop Burke is the head of the Pope’s tribunal. He has every right to speak.
My sister, a resident of St. Louis, can verify that. That’s enough for me.
“Archbishop Burke is the head of the Pope’s tribunal. He has every right to speak.”
As the head of the Pope’s tribunal, does this Archbishop have the right to violate the canons?
If some were to see Burke’s outlandish behavior as meaning that, well, the consequences to the Vatican could be rather more than simply embarrassing both in the near and the long term. Burke isn’t worth the trouble he’s making, no more than Martino was.
Right or wrong I have liked the way he contended with Sebelius. Guess I was wishing he had a little gravitas.
How timely and how unified.
I’m not familiar with canon law. So I really can’t judge on that matter. But on the tribunal that hears cases against the clergy, etc.??
“I’m not familiar with canon law. So I really can’t judge on that matter.”
Its not so much a matter of “canon law” as it is the canons of The Church as decided by various councils of the One Church.
“But on the tribunal that hears cases against the clergy, etc.??”
In part, yes.
Ignorant
The opinion of a schismatic is irrelevant.
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