UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport
Dave Pierre
Illinois Justice Anne M. Burke (wife of Chicago ward boss Ed Burke) once served as the interim chair of the National Review Board, a lay group who advises the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on sex abuse policy. However, after her spiteful speech at this year’s Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) Conference, one cannot help but ask, “If these are the ‘faithful,’ who needs enemies?”
Burke’s 30-minute diatribe on September 14 at the Boston get-together took sharp aim at the Church’s bishops, as she accused Church leaders of:
■treating lay people as “second class citizens” and “serfs”;
■asking Catholics “to check [their] brains at the front door”;
■prioritizing “pride, untruths, [and] protecting the institution at all costs”;
■implementing “a needless attack upon the women religious”;
■”resurrecting the Inquisition”; and
■committing a “new form of lay abuse.”
Just.plain.weird
Yet the most bizarre aspect of Burke’s speech was her citations of various cultural and Church figures sprinkled in her talk. Among others, Burke variously quoted Cher, Wayne Gretzky, John Wayne, Thomas Edison, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, John F. Kennedy, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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