Pope Francis: “Cardinal Burke is an enemy, so I’m taking away his apartment and salary”

Cardinal Raymond Burke, a modest, sharp-witted and steadfast defender of doctrine and discipline, hates Santa Marta.  Pope Francis has been relentlessly pursuing the tradition-friendly American since his election.

(Rome) Pope Francis gathered all the dicastery heads of the Roman Curia a week ago today.  On that occasion, according to Vatican sources, he declared that Cardinal Raymond Burke was his “enemy,” “so I am taking away his apartment and salary.”

Cardinal Burke, highly intelligent and one of the most excellent church lawyers, can look back on a remarkable career - until the election of Pope Francis.  Pope John Paul II entrusted him with the diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin in 1994, then promoted him to archbishop of Saint Louis in Missouri in 2003.  Pope Benedict XVI  appointed the tradition-friendly canonist to the Roman Curia in 2008 and appointed him Prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signatura.  In 2010 he created him a cardinal.  This made Burke the highest-ranking judge in the Holy Church after the Pope.

 The hostility of Pope Francis

Due to his closeness to tradition and to Benedict XVI.  From March 2013, however, he became the obvious enemy of the new Church leader.  With the election of Francis, Burke immediately lost two of three memberships in Roman congregations, most notably being expelled from the Congregation of Bishops because they wanted to eliminate his influence on the appointment of bishops in the USA.  He was replaced by the progressive Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who then promptly fell in the wake of the McCarrick scandal.  The exchange served to ensure that more homophile McCarrick protégés were placed on bishops' chairs rather than defenders of the faith.

When Cardinal Burke became the spokesman for the defenders of the sacraments of marriage and penance at the first family synod in 2014, Francis' next reaction was not long in coming.  A few days after the conclusion of the synod, he deposed Burke as prefect of the Supreme Signature and removed him from the Roman Curia.

The American was relegated to a purely prestigious position as cardinal patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta until he got in Francis' way there at the end of 2016.  When the Pope deposed the then Grand Master and Prince of the Order of Malta in an arbitrary act, he also deposed Cardinal Burke.  He was only left with an empty official title, while his duties as papal representative to the Order of Malta were transferred to a special legate.  At the same time, the top lawyer's last membership in a Roman congregation, that for worship and the sacraments, was revoked.

The Pope's mockery

In 2021, Francis mocked at a flying press conference that Cardinal Burke was in the intensive care unit with severe pneumonia and was in a struggle between life and death.  Burke had criticized the corona vaccination, especially the exercise of de facto coercion, in which Francis took the most radical approach of all states and threatened all employees of the Vatican and the Holy See with dismissal if they did not undergo the experimental mRNA gene therapy, of which neither effect nor side effects were known.  A central point of criticism from the cardinal was the use of aborted children to produce the Corona preparations.  Francis, on the other hand, mocked journalists: “Even in the College of Cardinals there are some objectors, and one of them, the poor man, is in the hospital with the virus.”

However, Cardinal Burke recovered and returned to his old powers without mRNA gene therapy.  But Francis, the Corona radical on the papal throne and among the heads of state who closed St. Peter's Basilica for months, had shown his face by expressing mockery and gloating about the possible death of Cardinal Burke instead of finding words of compassion and sympathy  .

Grotesque personnel castling “for reasons of age”

In 2023, upon reaching the age of 75, Burke submitted his resignation as Cardinal Patron of the Order of Malta and immediately lost this last, albeit empty, title.  He was replaced by the Bergoglian Gianfranco Cardinal Ghirlanda.  Ghirlanda was promptly given back all the responsibilities that had been withheld from Burke for years.  The absurdity of Bergoglian personnel policy has rarely been more evident than at this moment: the 75-year-old Burke was dismissed for reasons of age in order to appoint the 81-year-old Ghirlanda as his successor.

Now it has become known that at the meeting of all dicastery leaders on November 20th, Pope Francis denounced Cardinal Burke and said:

 “Cardinal Burke is one of my enemies, so I’m taking away his apartment and salary.”

Cardinal Burke is currently in the USA.  No formal communication of sanctions from the Holy See has yet reached him.  The way in which this year already happened with Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the former personal secretary of Benedict XVI.  and Prefect of the Apostolic House, leaves little doubt that Francis is also serious about the retaliatory and punitive action against Cardinal Burke.

 Little respect for canon law

Since Francis cares little about canon law and insists all the more on his papal power, it is not to be expected that there will be any legal objections to such an action, which can hardly be justified, or that it could even prevent it.  The recent dismissals or de facto dismissals of faithful bishops speak volumes about Francis' understanding of the law.

Cardinal Burke’s “enmity” appears to have become a fixation for Francis.  The statement: “Cardinal Burke is one of my enemies” should be understood to mean that Francis is hostile to Burke.  Burke repeatedly and strongly rejected the label of “enemy of the Pope.”

A few days ago, Francis gave the German bishops a shot across the bow, but the homophile modernists in the German bishoprics are not his problem as long as they do not want to rise above him.  But Cardinal Burke seems to embody everything that Francis despises, despising so much that he wants to eradicate it - and that doesn't mean Bergoglio's deep-seated anti-gringo mentality.

Unwavering, intelligent and coherent

Cardinal Burke defends tradition, he is steadfast, intelligent and coherent.  It is this combination that makes him so threatening to Francis.  Cardinal Burke is the mirror held up to Francis;  he embodies what a pope should be.

In addition, for Francis, Burke represents and contacts with the “religious right” in the USA, a diction that Francis adopted from left-wing sociologists and introduced into Church discourse.  This “religious right” is being fought by Francis, which is why his attempts to contact US evangelicals quickly came to nothing.  This ended in early 2016 with Donald Trump's candidacy at the latest.  Francis sees the traditional and conservative Catholic Americans as the greatest organized resistance that could stand in the way of his corrosive restructuring of the church in line with the globalist UN agenda.  And Cardinal Burke is their arm in the church, according to the Pope's idea.

 The Pope's foster son

The fact is that on October 3, 2023, at a meeting in Rome on the eve of the Synodality Synod, Cardinal Burke subjected the first statements and actions of the new Prefect of the Faith, Victor Manuel Fernández, known as “Tucho”, to a devastating criticism after - hard to believe - Cardinal Burke  insulted as a heretic and schismatic.  Tucho Fernández, whom the Bergoglian Sr. Lucia Caram happily described on Spanish television as a “homosexual,” is Pope Francis’ foster son.  Any criticism of him is taboo and will not be forgiven.

Above all, Cardinal Burke repeatedly urged Francis to fulfill his duties and responsibilities as pope.

Cardinal Burke repeatedly stood in Francis's way by signing and also playing a key role in drafting several of the most important documents criticizing Francis' pontificate.  These include the first dubia [doubts] about the controversial post-synodal exhortation Amoris laetitia and the second dubia, which raise fundamental questions and demand clarification of how Francis views the revealed truth and the dogmas of the faith.

 Deprive people of their livelihoods

Since Francis can no longer take office from his opponent Burke, since the American has already had all his offices taken away, he wants to take a punitive action that is unprecedented in Church history and deprive the cardinal of the roof over his head and his salary.  Apparently, even the most elementary principles that Francis otherwise preaches, namely that housing and food are among the basic rights of everyone, do not apply to traditionalists like Cardinal Burke.  Nobody excepted.  Except…

The most recent announcement suggests that Francis would prefer to remove cardinals like Burke, i.e. the few remaining members of the College of Cardinals who oppose the Bergoglian Revolution and were not appointed by Francis, from the Church Senate.

 In conclusion, we agree with the succinct assessment of Riccardo Cascioli, editor-in-chief of Nuova Bussola Quotidiana:

 “The fact is that the end of this pontificate is increasingly resembling a South American dictatorship in its methods.”

 Text: Giuseppe Nardi

 Image: Divinitas (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.Com

AMDG