UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald
By Madeleine Teahan posted Thursday, 8 Jan 2015
The cardinal portrays men as feeble victims of a ‘feminised’ Church. He should give them more credit than that
One of the most outspoken prelates in the Catholic Church has set tongues wagging with his latest comments.
Cardinal Raymond Burke told a website called The New Emangelization: “I think there has been a great confusion with regard to the specific vocation of men in marriage and of men in general in the Church during the past 50 years or so. It’s due to a number of factors, but the radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalised.”
Cardinal Burke goes on to explain that, while “women are wonderful”, they are ubiquitous in the Church: “Apart from the priest the sanctuary has become full of women. The activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and have become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved.”
He also blames poor catechesis, female altar servers and a loss of the sacred in the liturgy for the marginalisation of Catholic men. He concludes: “Men are often reluctant to become active in the Church. The feminised environment and the lack of the Church’s effort to engage men has led many men to simply opt out.”
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