By Editorial Board
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
June 28, 2008
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/published-editorials/2008/06/ sunday-editorial-the-true-believer/
In his four and a half years as head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Raymond Leo Burke became a hero to traditionalist Catholics in the United States. One conservative commentator went so far as to call him "the new John Fisher for our times," the original one having been beheaded in 1535 for his opposition to King Henry VIII's creation of the Church of England.
Archbishop Burke has been promoted to prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, a Vatican post roughly analogous to chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The only higher legal authority in the church is the man who promoted Archbishop Burke: Pope Benedict XVI.
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The prefect's post generally guarantees elevation to cardinal, which means that Archbishop Burke, who turns 60 Monday, would be part of the conclaves that choose popes until he reaches the customary retirement age of 75.
Although he is regarded as among the American church's most conservative bishops, it's not out of the question that Archbishop Burke could be considered papabili — papal material — himself. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI three years ago, also was regarded as among the church's most conservative theological voices.
We congratulate Archbishop Burke on his appointment. He clearly is more comfortable amid the scholarly and legalistic vaults of canon law than he is as a pastoral leader. In that, he is more like his predecessor and patron in St. Louis, Justin Cardinal Rigali, now archbishop of Philadelphia, than Cardinal Rigali was like his predecessor in St. Louis, Archbishop John L. May.
Indeed, Archbishop Burke and Cardinal Rigali are at the forefront of what could be called an "old school" movement among American bishops that places great emphasis on faithful allegiance to the church's catechetical teachings. Archbishop May, who died in 1994, along with Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, the former bishop of Belleville, are more closely aligned with bishops who stress the church's interaction with the problems of the world.
Non-Catholics and secular institutions, including this editorial page, do not get a vote on the church's teachings. In fact, as Archbishop Burke surely would point out, Catholics themselves don't get a vote on the church's teachings, either; the church is not a democracy. So we take no stand on whether Archbishop Burke was right or wrong in most of his high-profile pronouncements here.
We'll say only that there sure were a lot of them. In that sense, we admire the archbishop: He wasn't one to hide his light under a bushel.
Among those issues: his efforts to claim control over the finances of St. Stanislaus Koska Church; his decision to excommunicate church board members; his discipline of those involved with an ordination-like ceremony for two women; his involvement in the dispute over stem cell research and his denunciation of singer Sheryl Crow's involvement with a fundraiser for Cardinal Glennon Hospital. All these were internal church issues that just happened to become public.
Even his widely publicized statement that priests should deny communion to Catholic politicians — such as 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry — who support abortion rights was a faithful interpretation of traditional church doctrine.
But there is one area in which Archbishop's Burke's actions intersected with broader public issues and for which he should be held to account. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group, said in a statement released Friday that under Archbishop Burke, "dozens of proven, admitted, and credibly accused predator priests have been welcomed here." The statement continued, "In fact, we believe there's not a bishop in America who has imported so many pedophile priests into his diocese as Burke has."
That is not just a church matter. We hope Archbishop Burke's successor will recognize that.
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