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.” 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.ĭuring 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.Īustrian 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. 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.
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. But there is no such option for a gay person or those who are divorced and remarried, except permanent celibacy. 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. 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.īut comparing those situations in any context is unusual, and certainly out of step with the pastoral tone that Francis has set in his papacy. 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. The lengthy interview was published on Tuesday (March 24). It’s like the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people.” “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.Īsked if being “kind” and “generous” and “dedicated” is enough, Burke replied: “Of course it’s not.
“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. 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.”
CARDINAL RAYMOND BURKE FREE
Cardinal Raymond Burke by moving him out of a senior post in the Vatican to a largely ceremonial role at a Rome-based Catholic charity, it was viewed as a way to sideline one of the pontiff’s most outspoken critics on the right.īut 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. (RNS) When Pope Francis last year effectively demoted U.S. 8, 2014 to an honorary post as patron of the Order of the Knights of Malta. Cardinal Raymond Burke no longer heads the Vatican’s highest court.
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