Free Republic

Editor’s Note: Cardinal Raymond Burke spoke with LifeSiteNews Paris correspondent Jeanne Smits in Rome on January 21. We are running the interview along with an article (available here) drawing out some of the cardinal's most significant points. Smits has also published a French version of the interview on her blog.LifeSiteNews: Since the extraordinary synod on the family, we have entered a period of uncertainty and confusion over several “hot-button” issues: communion for divorced and “remarried” couples, a change of attitude towards homosexual unions and an apparent relaxing of attitudes towards non-married couples. Does your Eminence think that this confusion is...

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 ... 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.” ...

VATICAN CITY, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- After speaking out against statements of Pope Francis that appear to be very lenient toward homosexuals in the church, Cardinal Raymond Burke has been removed from his position as leader of the Vatican's highest court. The pope has worked on a draft of the synod of bishops that included welcoming homosexual people into the Catholic church, to some degree. That part did not make it to the final draft, but it did stir things up in the church. Around this time, Cardinal Raymond Burke told Buzzfeed "the pope is not free to change the...

VATICAN CITY — American Cardinal Raymond Burke, who championed campaigns to deny Holy Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion, was removed by Pope Francis from another top Vatican post on Saturday. The removal of Burke as head of the Holy See's supreme court was widely expected in Catholic Church circles. While he was archbishop of St. Louis, from 2003 to 2008, he led fellow American bishops in campaigns to stop giving Holy Communion to Catholic politicians who support legalized abortion. He has questioned some of the pontiff's pronouncements and approaches. Last year, Francis took Burke off the Vatican's powerful...

Background: On Nov. 8, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had removed Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the strongest pro-life and pro-family voices in the Catholic Church, from his position as the prefect of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura. Cardinal Burke has instead been named patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a largely ceremonial role. For the past 6 years, Cardinal Burke has served at the Vatican, after he was called there by Pope Benedict, heading up the highest court of the Catholic Church. Among Cardinal Burke’s many actions in defense of the truths of life and family has...

Rome) Since last September there have been rumors, now it has become reality. Pope Francis has removed the US Cardinal Raymond Burke as Cardinal Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and appointed him Cardinal Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Thus, the cardinal is removed from Church leadership, to which he belonged as head of the Supreme Court. Vindictive Retaliation by Pope Only a few weeks after the completion of the Synod of Bishops the "sending away" of the cardinal appears as revenge and retaliation by Pope Francis. So the reigning pope seems to have acted in quite a...

President Obama gave House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi rosary beads blessed by Pope Francis during lunch Tuesday at the White House, according to an NBC News reporter. Carrie Dann @CarrieNBCNews Pelosi says she received a rosary blessed by Pope Francis from Obama at lunch today 12:24 PM - 1 Apr 2014 Obama met Pope Francis at the Vatican for the first time last week. Pelosi, a Catholic, has been criticized for her support of abortion — a practice which she has called “sacred ground” — by other Catholics. Last year, a Vatican official in Rome said that the California lawmaker...

VATICAN, November 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the highest ranking cardinals in the Vatican has said that the United States is “well on the way” to the persecution of Christians. Cardinal Raymond Burke Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis and now the head of the Vatican’s highest court, told Catholic News Agency that he could envision a time when the Catholic Church in the U.S., “even by announcing her own teaching,” is accused of “engaging in illegal activity, for instance, in its teaching on human sexuality.” Asked if the cardinal could even see American Catholics being arrested...