Allen’s comments are representative of the kind of nonsense perpetuated by those who can’t stand authority, even if it comes from God. Was Archbishop promoted to get him out of St. Louis? Get real!

There are roughly 500,000 Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Louis out of the 1,000,000,000 Catholics in the world. That makes St. Louis Catholics 0.05% (one in 10,000) of the total Catholic population. To think that the Vatican would move someone to one of the top positions in the Curia because he stepped on a few toes in this backwater outpost is either amazingly arrogant, of just plain stupid.

St. Louis, once called “the Rome of the West” just isn’t that important anymore. Not only are we losing all of our top corporations, we’ve also lost our position as a leader in faith.

Don’t forget the great quote in the Post-Dispatch article of June 28 by the Rev. Thomas Reese, of the Woodstock Theological Institute at Georgetown University:

“It’s the respect the pope and Vatican officials have for him as canon lawyer that has gotten him this job,” Reese said. “The pastoral skills needed to run a diocese are not needed as the head of the Signatura.” (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/34E7BE86250B0B0B862574760010B1E6)

I got a good chuckle out of this quote. It really seemed to slight the archbishop’s pastoral skills.

Within the “Appreciation for the United States” section is the astonishing statement: “There is a bit of old Roman wisdom that you want sticklers for the rules, and for the teachings of the church, setting policy at a level beyond the limits of time and place”. If Bishop Burke is at a level beyond space and time, he has been promoted to a place out of this world.

Maybe it was just a diplomatic maneuver instigated by the United States. Who needs Cannon law when we already have American law?

As a moderate to liberal Protestant, I’ve found the whole Burke situation just a bit bizarre.

Canon law being what it is, I wonder why so many people, knowing what Burke’s reputation was before he came to St. Louis, deliberately thumbed their collective noses at him?

His tenure in St. Louis does also bring into sharp relief one of the most difficult balancing acts of any leader in any church: Where do you find the balance between the demands of faith (discipline) and the needs of the fallen humans you’re dealing with. How do we make church discipline a healing act as opposed to a destructive one?

It’s a challenge that Burke took to the legal side. Others, just as faithful, would have perhaps taken it to what might be called the compassionate side.

It’s not really a “Liberal/Conservative” argument, although it is frequently put that way (with good reason). I see it as an indicator of the struggle between the Jesus who faced down the Pharisees (Whited Sepulchers anyone?) and the Jesus who had supper at the house of Zaccheus.

This horse has been beaten to death. Time to move on.

This idea of promuovere per rimuovere is not a foreign concept to the Vatican. When a beloved bishop is creating too much controversy as in the case of Cardinal Law as well, he is promoted to a Vatican post where he can do useful work but is no longer in a pastoral role. Abp Burke will find his vast knowledge of canon law put to good use in this appointment and conveniently he won’t have to deal with the storm he created just before he left.
He is also conveniently out of the picture for the breaking news of the Archdiocese:” Church pays out $467,500 more for sex abuse claims.” Surely he had to come up with this money from somewhere. Oh, yes didn’t he sell
sell some closed church buildings to get enough money to pay for these claims. And wasn’t this a source of a bit of discontent among the parishioners and their priest? I think they too received some of Abp Burke’s “medicine”
as well.

Burke will probably spend the rest of his life in Rome.If he’s serious about abortion being an abomination(worse than war!), why not denounce his U.S. citizenship? After all, the United States of America IS pro-choice.Women in this country have the right to get an abortion.Maybe other hardline anti-choice U. S. Catholics will follow Burke to Rome.Pro-Choice America:  Love it or leave it!