A Trump-loving bishop with anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-feminist views is currently in the running to become the next Pope. But the Wisconsin bishop’s views so strongly oppose those of the late Pope Francis that he was stripped of his subsidised Vatican apartment and stipend because he was seen as working “against the Church”.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke has been outspoken about policies towards same-sex relationships, divorce, and the role of women. He also deemed Trump’s first-term win in 2016 a victory for anti-abortion, and in 2019, he urged voters to support the current President again, stating he had a “great disposition” towards the Church’s moral laws. Despite his clear differences from the more liberal Pope Francis, he was pitted as a top eight contender by the New York Times podcast, and betting sites rank him in the top twelve, which would make him the first ever American Pope.
His clash against the Church began following Pope Francis’ inauguration, when Burke was denied the renewal of his membership in the Congregation of Bishops due to his views on abortion and same-sex marriage.
In 2014, he came out against the Vatican Synod on the Family conference, after it proposed relaxing the approach towards same-sex relationships.
He claimed the Church had “lost its way,” adding: “Many have expressed their concerns to me. At this very critical moment, there is a strong sense that the church is like a ship without a rudder.”
The 76-year-old was then removed from the Supreme Tribunal and named patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta instead, a largely ceremonial role. The events were attributed to a decision made months earlier.
In 2017, following a plot to out a senior official for authorising a purchase of condoms for people in Burma, modern day Myanmar, he was stripped of all but his figurehead role at the Order.
The pope sent a ‘special delegate’ to exercise the duties of the patron, and it was later confirmed Burke was ‘de facto suspended’.
Burke publicly condemned the child abuse scandal in the Catholic church, but in August 2015, he attributed it to “radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s”.
In 2019 he claimed the scandal was down to “the plague of the homosexual agenda”, absolving the child abusers of responsibility by claiming it was because they were “feminized and confused about their own sexual identity”.
He became a cardinal in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI, after he called him to Rome as prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.
Before that he was the Archbishop of St Louis from 2004 until 2008, after studying canon law at Gregorian University in Rome, serving as a parish priest in Wisconsin and high school teacher after being ordained in 1975.
However, many believe a Cardinal with views more aligned with the late Pope Francis will be the successor.
