In the past, conservatives prided themselves on loyalty to the pope and being in lockstep with all papal teachings, while progressives called for limits to papal power.

The devotees of tradition used to argue that liberals who complained about papal infallibility or centralization were backsliders who really needed to get with the program.

So while the John Paul II and Benedict XVI papacies had liberal theologians arguing that popes should govern more collaboratively, traditionalist critics of the current pope "have become reluctant to accept papal teaching (in its contents and forms) only with Francis," said Villanova University theology professor Massimo Faggioli.

In the recently published book "To Change the Church," Ross Douthat compares Francis to President Trump, arguing the pope is seeking to push through changes without thinking about the consequences.

"The story could end with Francis as its hero," the New York Times columnist writes. "But to choose a path that might have only two destinations — hero or heretic — is an act of great and dangerous presumption, even for a pope. Especially for a pope."

The desire for a pope to govern in an autocratic way as long as it suits one's agenda points to a much bigger debate about how much authority Catholic teaching gives to the man known as the Successor of St. Peter.

"I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven," Jesus tells Peter, who Catholics see as the first pope, in Matthew 16:19. "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

That gives the pope a pretty free rein.

At the same time, there are safeguards around papal power. Catholic tradition makes clear that pontiffs must govern the church with the bishops - a principle known as collegiality — while papal infallibility is strictly defined.

Constraining papal power has been on the mind of Cardinal Raymond Burke, a respected canon lawyer and leading light for traditional Catholics.

On April 7, he gave a long speech titled "The limits of papal authority in the doctrine of the Church" to a gathering in Rome largely made up of Francis critics.

The cardinal has threatened to publicly correct the pope over a footnote in his 2016 apostolic exhortation, "Amoris Laetitia," that envisions a way for some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

"Any expression of doctrine or practice that is not in conformity with divine revelation, contained in the sacred scriptures and in the tradition of the church, cannot be an authentic exercise of the apostolic or Petrine ministry and must be rejected by the faithful," the cardinal said.

Quoting a church lawyer from the 12th century, the 69-year-old prelate said that while "no mortal being" should have the "audacity to reprimand a pope on account of his faults," a pontiff must be called out if he has "deviated from the faith."

There are even times, Burke added, citing a historian of the late medieval period, when a pope "must, as a duty, be disobeyed."

Francis, on the other hand, has talked about the importance of receiving criticism. Four days after the cardinal's speech, the 81-year-old Argentine pontiff offered one of the most dramatic "I'm sorry" statements ever seen by a pope, over his mishandling of the Chilean sexual abuse scandal. Continue reading

• Image: RNS

American Cardinal Raymond Burke was recently dismissed as a "disappointed man" upset over the loss of his power by fellow Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, coordinator of Pope Francis's "C9" council of cardinal advisers.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, head of the Vatican's liturgy department, was praised by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI as someone with whom the liturgy is in "good hands."

Maradiaga's comments on Burke came in a new interview book with his fellow Salesian, Father Antonio Carriero, titled Solo il Vangelo è rivoluzionario ("Only the Gospel is Revolutionary"), published in Italy by Piemme.

Burke, who was removed by Pope Francis in November 2014 as head of the Vatican's supreme court, is widely seen as the leader of the conservative opposition to the pontiff's document on the family Amoris Laetita and its cautious opening to Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

He was among four cardinals who submitted a set of questions, called dubia, to Francis, seeking to dispel what they described as "grave disorientation and great confusion" created by the document.

In the new interview, Maradiaga comes out swinging.

"That cardinal who sustains this," Maradiaga said, referring to the criticism of Amoris, "is a disappointed man, in that he wanted power and lost it. He thought he was the maximum authority in the United States.

"He's not the magisterium," Maradiaga said, referring to the authority to issue official teaching. "The Holy Father is the magisterium, and he's the one who teaches the whole Church. This other [person] speaks only his own thoughts, which don't merit further comment.

"They are the words," Maradiaga said, "of a poor man." Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Crux

The letter asked him to clarify Church teaching about love and the family.

The Cardinals are Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller and Joachim Meisner.

The "dubia" (matters they say need specific yes/no answers from the Pope) have all emerged from Amoris Laetitia.

This document (in English, The Joy of Love) was released in April.

The Cardinals' concerns centre on having definite rules for doctrines like Communion for divorced and remarried couples.

They say Amoris Laetitia is "eroding the church's doctrinal absolute".

In their view, teachings about Communion and the moral law, which Amoris Laetitia discusses ambiguously, are still valid.

These included the doctrine that the divorced and remarried cannot receive Communion unless living as brother and sister, and the doctrine that some acts are intrinsically wrong.

The other four ask about fundamental issues of Christian life, and reference Pope John Paul II's encyclical Veritatis splendor

Burke, who is leading the four Cardinals' campaign, is known for his conservative views.

In his opinion the Church under Francis's leadership is like a "ship without a rudder" and people are becoming "seasick".

The Pope sees Amoris Laetitia differently.

He is critical of the Cardinals' demand for a firm, legal response from him.

Rather than offer their dubia a yes/no answer, he spoke publicly, saying we're called to "discern" what is right.

In this Francis says he's following the model set out by the Second Vatican Council.

Vatican II as it is commonly known, sought to reform the Church and bring it closer to people.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• National Catholic Reporter
• The Huffington Post
• CathNewsUSA
• Wikipedia Amoris Laetitia
• Wikipedia Raymond Burke
• Irish Catholic Bishops Conference

The Pontiff appointed Cardinal Burke and Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna as members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The two prelates retain their respective positions as Archbishop of Bologna and Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

As members of the congregation, they will cast votes related to candidates for beatification and canonisation, including decrees on heroic virtue, miracles, and martyrdoms.

In mid-September, a US group called Catholic Whistleblowers called on Pope Francis to investigate Cardinal Burke and former Philadelphia archbishop Cardinal Justin Rigali.

Cardinal Burke led a diocese in Wisconsin and the St Louis archdiocese before leaving for Rome to lead the Vatican's highest court in 2008.

Catholic Whistleblowers have accused him of insensitive treatment of victims and their families.

Fr James Connell, a canon lawyer and member of Catholic Whistleblowers, said that in La Crosse, Wisconsin, then-Bishop Burke used a very strict definition in canon law to evaluate abuse cases.

This was equivalent to guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, Fr Carroll said, instead of a lesser standard called for in the US bishops' own policies, and therefore abusers were left in ministry.

Cardinal Burke refused to comment to media on the matter last month.

The cardinal is a prominent devotee of the traditional liturgy and is an outspoken defender of traditional doctrine on controversial moral issues.

In late 2014, Pope Francis finished Cardinal Burke's appointment as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and appointed him patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a largely ceremonial role.

This was seen by many as an effective demotion, but some said the cardinal had already served beyond his five year term.

In December 2013, Pope Francis did not reappoint him to his position on the Congregation for Bishops.

Sources

• Catholic World News
• Washington Times
• The Independent
• National Catholic Register
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Church Militant

Addressing students at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio earlier this month, Cardinal Burke discussed attacks on family life and the Church's response.

He said students must be wary of abandoning natural law and watering down faith and tradition in order to make certain practices acceptable.

"Some have gone too far to assert that the Church cannot speak of the natural law, intrinsically evil acts, irregular unions, and so forth.

"Their point is that the language itself already makes the culture hostile.

"However, doing so, the Church gives the impression of wanting to draw near to the culture, but without a clear identity of her own self and of what she has to say to the culture."

The cardinal urged students to have the strength to listen to and engage in the cultural debate of marriage, but not to forsake their identity in the name of tolerance.

He encouraged students to carry out all dialogue with honour and respect.

"According to divine wisdom, the Church must always speak the truth with love.

"Yes, the Church should go to the peripheries of today's culture, but always secure in her identity, manifesting the greatest compassion which necessarily involves respect for the truth of the current situation which many times is marked by confusion and error regarding the most fundamental truths of human life and its cradle which is the family."

Cardinal Burke also said: "In the present moment, when the attacks on matrimony and on the family even within the Church seem the most ferocious, it is the Church who must show to the whole of society the truth in all its richness and, therefore, the beauty and the goodness of marriage and the family."

Some Italian bishops have reportedly barred Cardinal Burke from speaking in their dioceses.

There have also been claims that he would be supportive of a schism should the outcomes of the upcoming synod on the family be contrary to his convictions.

Cardinal Burke has previously rejected such accusations.

Sources

• Daily Signal
• Image: Lifesitenews

The DVD comes from the British Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in collaboration with St Anthony Communications, which specialises in catechetical video presentations.

It has been launched as the Church prepares for the synod on the family in October.

Among the contributors to the DVD are US Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury.

The DVD covers such topics like cohabitation, homosexuality, divorce and re-marriage.

It also features lay experts and married couples who speak in support of the Church's teaching from their own experience.

Continue reading

In an interview with German daily Die Welt, Cardinal Burke said "we are all bound by the Magisterium".

"But some synod fathers, above all Cardinal Kasper, want to change it."

Cardinal Kasper's "merciful" solution for remarried divorcees who wish to receive Communion was discussed at last October's extraordinary synod on the family.

Cardinal Burke said a change to Church teaching at the next synod in October would present him with a dilemma.

"I would have to speak to the Holy Father and ask him how I can remain loyal to the truth and at the same time not break my vow of obedience," he said.

Continue reading

In a lengthy interview on Lifesitenews, Cardinal Raymond Burke criticised what he called confusion in the Church.

Cardinal Burke was asked about other prelates who had pointed out good qualities in relationships the Church defines as irregular or immoral.

"If you are living publicly in a state of mortal sin there isn't any good act that you can perform that justifies that situation: the person remains in grave sin," Cardinal Burke said.

People living in what the Church calls gravely sinful situations are called to conversion, he added.

Asked if being "kind" and "generous" and "dedicated" is enough, Cardinal Burke replied: "Of course it's not. It's like the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people."

In commentary on the Religion News Service, David Gibson noted that the Church has always taught that sin is sin and some sins are particularly serious.

But comparing cohabitation, homosexual relations and adultery with murder in any context is unusual, and certainly out of step with the pastoral tone that Francis has set in his papacy, Gibson wrote.

During last year's family synod, several prelates spoke about the lives of unmarried or remarried couples as having value that the Church should recognise.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn has repeatedly stressed that the Church should "look at the person and not the sexual orientation".

Similarly, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, a senior adviser to Francis, once said that "one simply cannot say that a faithful homosexual relationship that has held for decades is nothing".

"We just mustn't lump things together and measure everything with the same yardstick, but must differentiate and take a closer look, which doesn't mean that I endorse homosexuality as a whole," he said.

Last year, Pope Francis did not reappoint Cardinal Burke as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura when his term expired.

Instead the cardinal was given a largely ceremonial role with the Order of Malta.

Sources

• Religion News Service
• Lifesitenews
• Lifesitenews
• Image: Time

On "Pope Francis - The Sinner", Cardinal Raymond Burke says that since Pope Francis's election two years ago, "there really just is growing confusion about what the Church teaches".

When Cardinal Burke's term as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura came to an end, Pope Francis did not reappoint him.

Instead, Cardinal Burke was given a largely ceremonial role with the Order of Malta.

According to the Irish Times, the documentary will also feature former president of Ireland Mary McAleese saying that while she likes Pope Francis, she feels he just doesn't get women.

"There's a blind side here . . . that leaves good men . . . like Francis still carrying a residual element of misogyny that closes them off . . .," she says.

The Pope's Argentinean biographer Elisabetta Pique tells the programme "he was almost hated by some Jesuits . . ." there.

This is a view echoed by Fr Michael Petty who says "he provoked tremendous division" when he was (Jesuit) provincial in Argentina.

The former Superior General of the Dominicans Fr Timothy Radcliffe however believes that the Pope trusts in the Holy Spirit.

"A very important part of Pope Francis' spirituality is daring not to be in control," he said.

In an address earlier this month in England, Cardinal Burke said that last year's synod on the family, called by Pope Francis, was "confused and erroneous" in that it sought to condone contraception, gay relationships and "living in a public state of adultery".

Cardinal Burke said "confusion about the meaning of human sexuality" had led to breakdown of the family, corruption of children and "ultimately, self-destruction".

During the address, which ran to 25 pages but did not mention Pope Francis, he criticised the report that was issued at the midpoint of the synod, which advocated using more welcoming language around homosexuality.

Cardinal Burke called this report "a manifesto, a kind of incitement to a new approach to fundamental issues of human sexuality in the Church".

Sources

• The Irish Times
• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic News Agency

The letter also calls on the synod to proclaim the Church's "unchanging" moral teaching.

The initiative comes from a group of dozen priests, dubbed by The Tablet as "conservative-minded".

Among their number is the Dominican theologian Fr Aidan Nichols.

The group sent another letter to priests outlining the reasons for their action.

The first letter urges those who participate in this year's synod of bishops to end "confusion" that was caused at last year's gathering.

It also pledges help to those struggling with the demands of the Gospel in an increasingly secular society.

Priests are urged to send the signed letter to a "support of marriage co-ordinator".

The group that sent the letters say they are committed to serve all who struggle to live out the demands of the Gospel in modern life.

They stress, however, that clarity in teaching is never opposed to pastoral practice, but is instead its foundation.

The priests argue that the synod has left many to whom they minister confused.

"All too often it is those who have been most faithful to the teaching of the Church, and have made great sacrifices in order to conform their lives to the Gospel, who have been left in greatest distress," the letter states.

The letters came as American Cardinal Raymond Burke gave several talks in England.

In one talk, Cardinal Burke said the new evangelisation of Western societies will fail unless the Church succeeds in transmitting its teachings on marriage and the family to Catholics.

"If we can't get it straight with regard to the truth about marriage and the family, we really don't have much to say about anything else," Cardinal Burke said.

Without naming anyone, he criticised Church figures who, he said, "will obscure the truth of the indissolubility of marriage in the name of mercy".

Sources

• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Catholic News Agency

Cardinal Raymond Burke, in an interview with the Rorate Caeli website, said Pope Francis himself doesn't consider "Evangelii Gaudium" to be magisterial teaching.

"I now say to people that, if they are experiencing some confusion from the method of teaching of Pope Francis, the important thing is to turn to the catechism and to what the Church has always taught, and to teach that, to foster it at the parish level, beginning first with the family," Cardinal Burke said.

"We can't lose our energy being frustrated over something that we think we should be receiving and we're not."

Continue reading

According to a Breitbart report, their letter to the Pope focuses on the synod on the family in October.

It expresses the signatories' "fears and hopes regarding the future of the family".

Those who signed include princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, barons and baronesses, descendants of storied European royal families and one exiled African king.

Their numbers include Kigeli V, exiled King of Rawanda, the heads of the Imperial House of Portugal and Brazil, Prince Armand de Merode of Belgium, Duke and Duchess Antonello Del Balzo di Presenzano of Italy, Princess Monika of Lowenstein-Werthheim-Rosenberg, Baron Rudolf Pfyffer von Altishofen of France and many others.

The letter says: "Our fears arise from witnessing a decades-long sexual revolution promoted by an alliance of powerful organisations, political forces and the mass media that consistently work against the very existence of the family as the basic unit of society."

The signers trace the ongoing sexual revolution to the May 1968 "Sorbonne Revolution" in France and "morality opposed to both divine and natural law".

The letter "notes with anguish that, for millions of faithful Catholics, the beacon seems to have dimmed in the face of the onslaught of lifestyles spread by anti-Christian lobbies".

Specifically, the signers believe "a breach has been opened within the Church that would accept adultery-by permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion-and would virtually accept even homosexual unions".

The signers ask the Pope to clarify Church teaching ahead of the synod.

Among the signatories is American Cardinal Raymond Burke and English novelist, historian and biographer Piers Paul Read.

More than 100,000 people have added their signatures to the letter, using an online device, according to Breitbart.

Sources

• Breitbart
• Filial Appeal
• Image: The Guardian

In an interview on a French television channel, Cardinal Raymond Burke said popes do not have the power to change the Church's teaching or doctrine.

Papal power is "at the service of the doctrine of the faith", he explained, according to a translation of the interview on the blog Rorate Caeli.

The interviewer then asked: "In a somewhat provocative way, can we say that the true guardian of doctrine is you, and not Pope Francis?"

"We must, let us leave aside the matter of the Pope," the cardinal replied.

"In our faith, it is the truth of doctrine that guides us."

"If Pope Francis insists on this path, what will you do?" the interviewer then asked.

"I will resist. I cannot do anything else," he said.

Cardinal Burke went on to say that the Catholic Church is facing "a difficult time" that is "painful" and "worrisome".

But he recalled the Lord's assurances in the Gospel that the forces of evil would not prevail.

Asked whether Pope Francis is his friend, the cardinal replied, "I would not want to make of the Pope an enemy, certainly!"

According to a subsequent report on the Catholic News Agency, Cardinal Burke said he was "responding to a hypothetical situation" in his comments about Pope Francis and doctrine.

"I simply affirmed that it is always my sacred duty to defend the truth of the Church's teaching and discipline regarding marriage," Cardinal Burke said.

"No authority can absolve me from that responsibility, and, therefore, if any authority, even the highest authority, were to deny that truth or act contrary to it, I would be obliged to resist, in fidelity to my responsibility before God."

Late last year, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Burke to a largely ceremonial position with the Order of Malta.

This came after the cardinal's term as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura had come to an end.

Many commentators saw the move by Pope Francis as a demotion for Cardinal Burke.

Sources

• UCA News
• Catholic Herald
• Catholic News Agency
• Rorate Caeli
• Image: CBS News

The former Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura made the comments while addressing more than 300 delegates at a family and marriage conference organised by Catholic Voice, Limerick, Ireland.

Cardinal Burke told the gathering the issues of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, cohabitation and same-sex marriage had distracted from the 2014 October Synod.

Warning that Satan was sowing confusion and error about matrimony, Cardinal Burke said, "Even within the church there are those who would obscure the truth of the indissolubility of marriage in the name of mercy."

Cardinal Burke said that he could not reconcile the Church's clear teaching on marriage with the proposal to allow Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics.

He went on to argue that a clear affirmation of marriage is needed in a culture afflicted by pornography, a contraceptive mentality, and an "incredibly aggressive homosexual agenda."

The Cardinal is recommending that rather than focussing on hot-button issues, next year's synod devote itself to promoting the church's teaching on marriage.

He recommends the faithful write to Pope Francis and local Church officials to make their views known.

Once the Vatican's top canon lawyer, Cardinal Burke is critical of Pope Francis, telling Buzzfeed News that the 2014 Synod on the Family "seemed to have been designed to 'weaken the church's teaching and practice' with the apparent blessing of Pope Francis."

Confirming he had been removed as head of the Vatican's highest court he told Buzzfeed News he had enjoyed being of service, he'd enjoyed his work and was disappointed to leave.

Asked who had told him he would be removed, Burke replied: "Who do you think?"

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Buzzfeed News
• Interview with Cardinal Burke
• Image: CBS News

And top prize for the person most responsible for being irresponsible goes to none other than the man wearing the long red train.

Yes, to Burke himself.

In an interview with the news site Breitbart.com just days before he was officially removed as prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the 66-year-old American cardinal again stoked the fires.

He said if bishops, in the months leading to next year's second gathering of the Synod of Bishops on the family, were seen to move "contrary to the constant teaching and practice of the Church, there is a risk [of schism] because these are unchanging and unchangeable truths."

In the same interview, he urged Catholics to "speak up and act."

If you look a bit more closely at the cardinal's surprisingly fast advancement up the hierarchical ladder, as well as the groups with which he's been most associated, you'll understand which Catholics he's talking about.

Raymond Burke studied theology in Rome, where Pope Paul VI ordained him to the priesthood in 1975.

He returned to his home diocese of La Crosse, Wis., and did a couple of years of chancery work and assisting at the cathedral before returning to Rome to get a doctorate in canon law.

He then did another few years of chancery work and teaching in the diocese before being called to the Vatican in 1989 to work in the Apostolic Signatura.

Five years later, at only 46 years old, Pope John Paul II appointed him bishop of La Crosse.

In the nine years as head of his home diocese, his credentials as a doctrinal conservative and his strange penchant for the pre-Second Vatican Council Mass became more and more pronounced.

He reopened the diocese's long-shuttered high school seminary, set about building a retrograde shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and helped establish a weird neo-Tridentine religious community that had a special indult to use the Old Rite.

This was a full decade before Pope Benedict XVI would eventually grant unfettered use of the Tridentine Mass throughout the church. Continue reading

• Robert Mickens in National Catholic Reporter

Robert Mickens is editor-in-chief of Global Pulse.

Cardinal Burke is right: the group responsible for reporting the synod is manipulating the presentation of what's actually happening.

The presentation earlier this week of the so-called "mid-term report" of the extraordinary synod of bishops on the family (the Latin headline of which, relatio post disceptationem, may seem to the unenlightened to give it an authority it doesn't in fact possess) aroused a predictable level of interest in both the Catholic and the non-Catholic media.

Their general assumption has been (and the report's half dozen authors clearly intended that the assumption should be) that what it conveys is that the Catholic Church is gearing up, not for any change in pastoral strategy, but for fundamental changes in the Church‘s teachings (hitherto immutable) on important questions to do with marriage and with sexual morality.

Have a look at this from the Mail Online. The headline reads as follows: "Massive Vatican shift on gay sex: Summit on ‘family life' says unmarried couples living together can be ‘positive', gays and divorcees must be welcomed and contraception ‘respected'." Beneath that is a four-part standfirst:

• Catholic Church adopts rare progressive tone during talks of family issues
• Two-week summit reached midway point today with the release of a document summarising the extent of the closed-door debate so far
• Meeting is the first time Catholic Church has held a 'family synod' since 1980
• The summit has been described as a ‘step in the right direction' by activists

That this "progressive tone" reflects the unanimous views of all the synod fathers is taken for granted by the Mail's writer, John Hall, who went on to say that "Catholic bishops meeting to discuss ‘family issues' at a two week summit have said unmarried couples living together can be ‘positive', and gay relationships and divorces must be welcomed. Continue reading

Source

• William Oddie in The Catholic Herald

Dr William Oddie is a leading English Catholic writer and broadcaster. He edited The Catholic Herald from 1998 to 2004 and is the author of The Roman Option and Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy.

But the Pope today also significantly altered the congregation's membership by replacing three leading conservatives - including US Cardinal Raymond Burke, 65.

Among the new faces is 68-year-old Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster.

The conservative Cardinal Burke is considered a leading "culture warrior" and proponent of the pre-Vatican II Mass. After five years as Archbishop of St Louis, he was appointed by Benedict XVI as head of the Apostolic Signatura (the Church's "supreme court") in 2008. Two years later Benedict XVI gave him the red hat.

Pope Francis also terminated the services of two other cardinals considered strong allies to Benedict XVI, both of whom are Italians - Mauro Piacenza, 69, currently head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, believed to be one of the former pope's most conservative appointments in the Roman Curia; and Angelo Bagnasco, 70, the man Benedict XVI named as Archbishop of Genoa in 2006 and then president of the Italian Bishops' Conference.

In addition to Archbishop Nichols, other new members at the Congregation for Bishops include Cardinals Donald Wuerl, 73, of Washington, Francisco Robles Ortega, 64, of Guadalajara in Mexico; and Ruben Salazar Gomez, 71, of the Colombian capital, Bogota. Source: The Tablet

Cardinal Raymond Burke, said it is impossible to reconcile the Catholic identity of a Catholic college with decisions to honour political figures who have taken positions in support of abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

"You cannot reconcile it — it is a contradiction, it is wrong, it is a scandal, and it must stop!" Cardinal Burke said.

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