Pope Francis has removed some of the Vatican privileges of conservative US Cardinal Raymond Burke, including a large subsidized apartment and his salary, a senior Vatican official said on Tuesday.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, participated in a regular Vatican meeting when the pope made the announcement to senior aides last week.
He quoted the pope as saying that Burke, one of his fiercest critics, was “working against the Church and against the papacy,” and that he had sown “disunity” in the Church.
Photo: AFP
Burke has had no senior Vatican job for years. His is a consultant to one of its tribunals, as are numerous cardinals who live outside Rome, and spends most of his time in his native state of Wisconsin.
The official who was at the meeting denied media reports that Francis had called the 75-year-old Burke “an enemy.”
Burke is a hero to traditionalists in the Church, particularly in the US, where he is often a guest on conservative Catholic media outlets that have made criticism of the pope a mainstay of their operations.
The move by Francis was his second involving a conservative US prelate this month.
On Nov. 11, the pope dismissed another conservative critic, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, after Strickland refused to step down following a Vatican investigation.
In other papal news, the pope yesterday sounded wheezy and limited his speaking at a public event, a day after he canceled a trip to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai because of health issues.
“Dear brothers and sisters good morning and welcome,” the 86-year-old pontiff said at his weekly audience, held indoors in the Vatican’s Paul IV Audience Hall.
He said an aide would read his main text in his place, “since I am still not well with this flu and [my] voice is not nice.”
On Tuesday, the Vatican said Francis would no longer embark on his planned three-day trip to Dubai, which was to start on Friday, on doctor’s recommendations.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS