Pope Francis to Evict Outspoken US Cardinal from the Vatican
Pope Francis is evicting Cardinal Raymond Burke, an outspoken critic, from his Vatican apartment and revoking his salary.
Cardinal Burke is part of a group of American conservatives who have long opposed the Pope’s plans for reforming the Catholic Church.
The Pope revealed his plan to act against the cardinal at a meeting with heads of Vatican offices last week.
Earlier this month, he fired Joseph Strickland, a conservative Texas bishop who had blasted his attempts to move the church to more liberal positions on abortion, transgender rights, and same-sex marriage.
The removal followed a church investigation into the governance of the diocese.
Tensions with Cardinal Burke, who was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, have been simmering for nearly a decade, with the American prelate openly criticizing Pope Francis over both social and liturgical issues.
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He also joined fellow conservatives in publishing a “declaration of truths” in 2019 that described the Catholic Church as disoriented and confused under Pope Francis, saying that it had moved away from core teachings on divorce, contraception, homosexuality, and gender.
Notably, he disagreed with the pope promoting COVID-19 vaccines.
Within church politics, he and Pope Francis were at odds over the firing of the head of the Knights of Malta after the order’s charity branch was found to have distributed condoms in Myanmar.
The Pope, in turn, has demoted Cardinal Burke within the church hierarchy or moved him to posts with less influence over the years.
Michael Matt, a columnist for the right-wing Catholic newspaper The Remnant, wrote that the most recent action taken against Cardinal Burke showed that Pope Francis was “canceling faithful prelates who offer hierarchical cover to pro-life, pro-family, pro-tradition hardliners”.
He accused the Pope of putting critics into “forced isolation”.
