St. Louis Post-Dispatch
June 29, 2008
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/FDD5368B08186996862574760015D573?OpenDocument
After breaking down in tears Friday as he announced to the press and his supporters that he was leaving for a job in Rome, Archbishop Raymond Burke asked Catholics in St. Louis to pray for him.
He promised to remember the St. Louis archdiocese in his prayers every day for the rest of his life. "I will never, ever, lose the deep affection I have for the archdiocese of St. Louis," he said.
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| Elsie Hainz McGrath (left) and Rose Marie Hudson of the organization "Womenpriests." Photo by Dawn Majors/P-D |
Burke's relatively short tenure in St. Louis, just 4 ½ years, was marked by controversies.
The archbishop is considered one of the best canon lawyers in the world, and his governing style often betrayed both his legal acumen and his reliance on church law as a pastoral tool.
He never held back, and took on powerful politicians, rock stars, scientists, even fellow bishops.
His principled stands on unpopular issues, and his refusal to back down from positions he considered non-negotiable, were the qualities that made him a beloved hero to some and a pariah to others.
Not all of Burke's work was done in the glare of the spotlight. He was committed to his priests and deacons.
His seminarians at Kenrick-Glennon loved him and he spent so much time with them that even his admirers called him "obsessed with the seminary," at times, he said Friday.
But, said Burke, "a bishop is only good for his flock if he provides them with good priests."
JANUARY 2004
The new archbishop of St. Louis draws international attention when he says he would deny Holy Communion to Sen. John Kerry, then the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, because he supports abortion rights. Burke becomes the most visible champion of the position in the church. Proving he doesn't play sides in presidential politics, in October 2007 he repeats his warning, this time to 2008 Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.
June 2005
Just 1 1/2 years after his arrival, Burke spearheads the closure and sale of 19 churches, the largest wave of parish closings in the history of the archdiocese. The closings, many say, are inevitable, driven by a shortage of priests and the migration of Catholics from city to suburb. Still, they affect thousands. In north St. Louis County, 21 parishes are set to be closed or reconfigured. In south St. Louis, 17 parishes will close, though 11 will become chapels or parishes with a specific apostolate. Catholics across the region attend the final service of their home parishes on the last Sunday in June.
December 2005
Burke announces that the six lay members of the board of directors of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church and a priest they had hired to be their pastor had been excommunicated. The church, would no longer be a part of the archdiocese, Burke says. When Burke arrived in 2004, he had demanded the church conform to the same legal structure as the archdiocese's other churches and removed the parish priests when church leaders refused. In March, Burke declared two new lay board members excommunicated, though earlier this month, one of the original Stanislaus Six was reconciled with the church after being granted absolution from his excommunication.
November 2006
Burke leads a multi-denominational battle against the passage of Amendment 2, the Missouri proposal that would protect all forms of embryonic stem cell research allowed under federal law. The faith-based effort seeks to counter a $30 million campaign by amendment supporters highlighting future cures that could come from embryonic stem cells. The Catholic church sees the research as akin to abortion, and Burke calls the amendment "a moral disaster for our state," its supporters "the agents of the culture of death" and the proposal "their deadly project." He records a message to be played in every archdiocese parish before the election. The Amendment passes narrowly.
April 2007
Burke quits the Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center foundation board after the rest of the board refuses his demand that Sheryl Crow be removed as the musical headliner benefiting the hospital's Bob Costas Cancer Center. Crow is an outspoken supporter of embryonic stem cell research and had taped television ads supporting Amendment 2. Burke says he cannot allow someone who "publicly espouses the mass destruction of innocent human beings" to raise money for a Catholic hospital. The show sells out. Crow performs anyway.
June 2007
Burke, considered one of the most devoted supporters of the old Latin Mass among U.S. bishops, ordains two deacons of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. The group is committed to the restoration of the Latin Mass, which was largely set aside in the 1960s after the Second Vatican Council changed the liturgy. His action marks the first time members of the 17-year-old institute are ordained in the United States, and the first time the traditional Latin liturgy is used in an ordination in St. Louis in more than 40 years. Just days later, the Pope announces he will allow more churches to use the old Latin Mass, and Burke mandates that students at Kenrick-Glennon seminary begin celebrating the traditional liturgy on Fridays.
January 2008
At a Hillary Clinton rally, St. Louis University basketball coach Rick Majerus says he is pro-choice, and in favor of embryonic stem cell research. The next week, Burke says SLU should discipline Majerus for his comments.
"The situation has to be disciplined," Burke says. "You can't have a Catholic university with one of its prominent staff making declarations that are inimical to Catholic teaching."
The university still has not reprimanded Majerus.
March 2008
Burke accuses two local women of schism, and declares them excommunicated. Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie Hainz McGrath had been ordained as priests in an organization called Roman Catholic Womenpriests at a St. Louis synagogue in November. The two women, along with the woman bishop who led their ordinations, are the first Womenpriest excommunications since 2002, when the organization was founded in Germany. Burke calls the movement "a new and separate sect." Hudson and McGrath co-pastor a faith community at the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis in the Central West End. Last week Burke announced that he had imposed the penalty of interdict on a Catholic nun from St. Cronan's parish in St. Louis who attended the ordinations.
May 2008
Pope Benedict XVI names Burke to two Vatican offices, increasing Burke's already prominent stature in Rome.
Burke, a canon lawyer by training, is one of eight cardinals and archbishops worldwide — just three Americans — whom Benedict names to the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, which interprets canon, or church, law. Burke is also one of six bishops assigned to the Congregation for the Clergy, which regulates the formation and training of diocesan priests and deacons.
In 2006, Benedict named the archbishop to be one of 15 members of the Vatican's Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Roman Catholic Church's supreme court and its highest judicial authority, and the body he will now lead.
May 2008
The St. Louis Archdiocese ordains nine priests, the largest St. Louis ordination class in 25 years and one of the largest in the U.S.
The student body at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary is now on track to enroll 120 students next year, which would double the size of the seminary population from a decade ago.
Burke calls it the greatest achievement of his tenure.
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