DownWithTyranny!: Satan's Man In Rome, Ray Burke, Knows Who To Blame For All His Woes: Women!

Right-wing drag queen, Raymond Cardinal Burke

Pope Francis demoted Raymond Cardinal Burke from a powerful Curia job to a ceremonial post once he recognized him as a cancer within the Vatican. But Burke is still a darling of the far right of the church and they still cover his hateful blatherings. Yesterday, the Pope met with Burke for 45 minutes, although the routine meeting had already been scheduled before Burke's latest hate-filled outburst about the feminization of the Church.

The 66-year-old American cardinal emerged as one of the leaders of the conservative camp at last fall’s Synod of Bishops on the family, at one point openly suggesting that Pope Francis owed the world an apology for sowing “confusion” about Catholic teaching on family matters, especially Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

In an interview published three days ago, Burke returned to some of the same themes, complaining that the Catholic Church has become too “feminized” and suggesting that a drop in vocations to the priesthood may be related to widespread use of altar girls.

A Vatican spokesman told Crux on Thursday, however, that the meeting with Francis was “routine” in light of Burke’s new role.

In early November, Francis removed Burke as head of the Vatican’s highest court and appointed him to a largely ceremonial post as patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which today functions mostly as a philanthropic foundation.

The move was widely seen as a demotion, though in a recent interview with an Argentine journalist, Francis denied that the move was a punishment for the role Burke played in the synod and said he needed a “smart American” in the new role.

Whenever a cardinal receives a new position, the spokesman said, it’s customary to have an appointment with the pope to talk about it.

Moreover, the spokesman said, the meeting could not have been a response to Burke’s most recent interview, because it’s been on the pope’s calendar for at least the past 10 days.

Burke is a primitive woman-hater in the way that old-time, self-loathing homosexuals like Burke have been until recent decades. Best known for his outrageous drag outfits, Burke has been a coddler of predatory priests for his entire miserable career and has always stood in the way of the legitimate aspirations of Catholic women. In his latest screed against the post-Enlightenment Church, Burke, channelling another right-wing woman-hater, Rush Limbaugh, said that "the radical feminist movement strongly influenced the Church, leading the Church to constantly address women’s issues at the expense of addressing critical issues important to men; the importance of the father, whether in the union of marriage or not; the importance of a father to children; the importance of fatherhood for priests; the critical impact of a manly character; the emphasis on the particular gifts that God gives to men for the good of the whole society. The goodness and importance of men became very obscured... [the] "radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalized."

But many women will head to Mass this weekend and note that the priest, bishop and pope have something in common: They are all men, and the power they hold in institutional church structures hardly looks like marginalization.

In spite of Burke’s paranoid opinion that “rampant liturgical experimentation” resulted in men who were “really turned off” by the Mass, women will stand and recite a recently revised Nicene Creed that states that Christ died “for us men.” They will pray to a God referred to only by male pronouns even as God’s gender remains stubbornly mysterious. Even the language of the liturgy negates the presence of women.

Yet Burke is bewildered by women’s “self-focused attitudes” and “constant and insistent demanding of rights.” Women, he said, “respond very naturally to the invitation to be active in the Church.” And yet, when the sanctuary becomes “full of women,” and the parish activities and liturgy are influenced by them, these become “so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved.”

...Burke argues that “feminized” priests have been so influenced by overbearing women that they have lost their sense of manhood. But it was that same generation of “feminized” priests who encouraged women to study theology, write for Catholic magazines, take up leadership roles in parishes and even educate future priests. Those priests see women as collaborators. They do not see women as something to be feared.

The problem with Burke’s idea of manhood is that it is oversimplified and based on antiquated notions of gender. Men, according to Burke, have “particular gifts,” they “make sacrifices” and defend their families with “chivalry.” They are “heroic” and should demonstrate a “manly identity” and “manly virtues.”

Women are “wonderful,” but that’s just about the only compliment Burke manages to pay them before he trashes the presence of altar girls in favor of Knights of the Altar who will “defend Christ” with their “chivalrous service.”

It would be easy here to point out that Burke also demands that “men need to dress and act like men” while having a reputation as a Vatican fashionista who often sports “elaborate silk and lace vestments.” One blog actually pairs photos of Cardinal Burke with ones of Liberace, and the resemblance is uncanny. Burke’s notions of gender may be woefully outdated, but his sense of style is wrought with irony.

Irony is perhaps the bottom-line takeaway from Burke’s ideas about gender. It is ironic that a man who wears silk and lace chooses to lecture men on what it means to be masculine.

It is ironic that the same man blames women for the drop in vocations to the priesthood when many of those women would make excellent priests.

It is ironic that women are considered a threat to a church that refers to itself as the “Bride of Christ.”

It is ironic that women who do the majority of catechesis at parishes, who educate priests, who write landmark works of theology and give birth to cardinals, bishops and popes are still not able to be leaders in the church. Because, according to Cardinal Burke, we’re just girls. And everyone knows girls are icky.

As Raw Story reminded us, "in his own time at the Vatican, Burke was called to account by his superiors for his lavish taste in ceremonial robes, donning a $20,000 jeweled hat for one prayer service and a cape with an elaborate 20-foot train that cost more than $30,000 for another. Burke was Cardinal of St. Louis from 2003 to 2008, a period during which he imported predator priests into his diocese from other areas in order to shield them from investigation. According to the clergy sex-abuse survivor advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), Burke was 'reckless, deceptive and callous regarding predator priests, vulnerable kids and wounded victims' during his tenure."

Burke, and conservative men in general, have always, all through history, seen women as a dangerous "other" to be feared and controlled. Burke is a symbol of the sickness that infects the Church hierarchy and Pope's Francis' decision to sideline him was a very good one. Now he should shut him up and get him to stop maligning the faithful.