

The Vatican has decreed that use of the vaccines is morally acceptable.
#CARDINAL RAYMOND BURKE FREE#
“With ever greater concern, we witness the devastating effect on individuals and families of the so-called ‘gender theory.’ … There is no question that great evils like pestilence are an effect of original sin and of our actual sins.”Īmong his many other homophobic and transphobic comments, he said in 2014 that Pope Francis “is not free to change the church’s teachings with regard to the immorality of homosexual acts.” Despite Francis’s sometimes welcoming attitude toward LGBTQ+ people, however, the pope has in no way changed that teaching.īurke has criticized vaccine mandates and repeated the conspiracy theory that the COVID vaccines contain a microchip, while also claiming the vaccines were developed “through the use of the cell lines of aborted fetuses.” That is misleading, the Post notes, as Pfizer and Moderna simply tested the vaccines on cell lines derived from fetal tissue. “We need only to think of the pervasive attack upon the integrity of human sexuality, of our identity as man or woman, with the pretense of defining for ourselves, often employing violent means, a sexual identity other than that given to us by God,” he wrote in a letter posted on his website at that time. In March 2020, early in the COVID pandemic, he said Catholics should attend Mass in person despite the health risks, partly in order to combat “the pervasive attack upon the integrity of human sexuality.” While the cardinal often resides in Italy, he travels extensively and was in the United States at the time of sharing the news about contracting the virus.Burke has made many anti-LGBTQ+ statements throughout his career, in addition to criticizing Catholic politicians who support abortion rights and activists for the ordination of women. While he was La Crosse’s bishop, Burke founded the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which has been handling his correspondence during his illness. Louis from 2004 to 2008, and as prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Signature from 2008 to 2014. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines did not use abortion-derived cell lines in developing or producing their vaccines, but they did in lab testing.īurke is a native of Richland Center, Wisconsin, in the La Crosse Diocese, and served as bishop of that diocese from 1995 to 2004, as archbishop of St. In December, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, citing church teaching, said that when alternative vaccines are not available, it is morally acceptable to receive vaccines developed or tested using cell lines originating from aborted fetuses, in this case, including COVID-19 vaccines. He also said that the “vaccination itself cannot be imposed, in a totalitarian manner, on citizens.” The thought of the introduction of such a vaccine into one’s body is rightly abhorrent.” The cardinal was eligible for the vaccine as a member of the College of Cardinals and a member of the Apostolic Signatura, which he led as prefect from 2008 until his resignation in 2014.īurke has expressed concerns about the COVID-19 vaccines, including that it is “never morally justified to develop a vaccine through the use of the cell lines of aborted fetuses. The Vatican had started offering all Vatican residents, retirees and employees the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech mid-January 2021. The cardinal has not made it public knowledge on whether he was vaccinated for the coronavirus.

10 that he had tested positive for the coronavirus that causes the illness. 14 indicated the 73-year-old prelate had been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 and was “being assisted by a ventilator.” He first tweeted Aug.

The cardinal’s official Twitter account Aug. “United with Jesus Christ, priest and victim, I offer all that I suffer for the church and for the world,” he wrote.
