UNITED STATES
News-Herald
By Jason Berry, GlobalPost
POSTED: 10/07/13
In trying to live up to Jesus’s message about solidarity with the poor, Pope Francis has called for a church geared to social justice. This pope wants church officials to live more modestly.
As he told newly-named bishops in Rome on Sept. 19, according to The Tablet, “We pastors must not be men with a ‘princely mindset.’”
But try telling that to Cardinal Raymond Burke, the chief judge of the Vatican’s supreme court.
The fruits of high officialdom come naturally to Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American, as found in photographs that show him in lavish procession with a train of watered silk, wearing fine scarlet gloves and jeweled red hats, suggesting nobility.
Many of these photos appear on the website of the ultra-orthodox group Burke has championed, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, which promotes Latin Mass and a return to a traditional, pre-Vatican II religious life. In a blistering interview posted on a more obscure Catholic website, Burke calls gay marriage the work of Satan and the Obama administration “totalitarian” for its support of gay marriage and the Affordable Care Act, which covers contraceptives.
Cardinal Burke, who made his remarks several weeks before the government shutdown, is often clad in the sumptuous attire of a Prince of the Church, as cardinals are called. Francis seemed to have ornamental practices in mind when he said in an interview with La Repubblica published this week: “Heads of the church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers.”
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