Kansas Crowd Applauds Cardinal Burke's Stump Speech

By Dennis Coday
National Catholic Reporter
February 17, 2017

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/kansas-crowd-applauds-cardinal-burkes-stump-speech

Cardinal Raymond Burke, Feb. 10 at St. James Academy in Lenexa, Kan. (NCR photo/George Goss)

Attendees listen to Cardinal Burke's lecture Feb. 10 at St. James Academy in Lenexa, Kan. (NCR photo/George Goss)

It was a stump speech. A speech filled with familiar themes for those who've been on the beat for a while.

But for a crowd in a packed Catholic high school gymnasium in Lenexa, Kan., on a Friday evening, it was a speech filled with red meat, a reassuring message that the crowd applauded and which explained why they call Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, "Leo the Lion," courageous and outspoken.

Burke's Feb. 9-11 tour of the Kansas City metro area included two public Masses — one each in the extraordinary and the ordinary forms — a public address and a luncheon with the local chapter of the Catholic Medical Association, and was a calm harbor from the storms of controversy that have swirled around the cardinal as of late.

Already buffeted by his calls for Pope Francis to clarify parts of his teaching, Burke found himself in more stormy seas in mid-January over troubles in the Knights of Malta, an ancient chivalrous order that traces its roots to the crusades and today maintains a worldwide prestigious membership and thousands of charitable causes. Burke is the order's spiritual patron. In January, Francis appointed a papal delegate to oversee the order.