Cardinal Raymond Burke says the women's
movement has left religious men "very marginalized"
Cardinal Raymond Burke(Credit: AP/Tom Gannam)cardinal Raymond Burke is not a progressive guy. The controversial
religious leader was demoted from his powerful position as the head of
the Vatican’s highest court after criticizing Pope Francis last year,
and has not been shy about spewing vitriol at the LGBT community, women’s rights advocates or the Obama administration. In a recent interview with The New Emangelization Project,
a website dedicated to attracting men to the church, Burke focused his
attention on the “radical” feminists whom he believes have disrupted
catholicism, blaming them for the prevalence of priests molesting
children.
Burke
charged the feminist movement with commandeering the church and forcing
leaders to “constantly address women’s issues at the expense of
addressing critical issues important to men,” and said that it was
“feminization” that led some priests to sexually abuse children:
The
Church becomes very feminized. Women are wonderful, of course. They
respond very naturally to the invitation to be active in the Church.
Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women. The
activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by
women and have become so feminine in many places that men do not want to
get involved. [...]
We can also see that our seminaries are
beginning to attract many strong young men who desire to serve God as
priests. The new crop of young men are manly and confident about their
identity. This is a welcome development, for there was a period of time
when men who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity
had entered the priesthood; sadly some of these disordered men sexually
abused minors; a terrible tragedy for which the Church mourns.
Jenny Kutner is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on sex, gender and feminism. Follow @jennykutner or email jkutner@salon.com.
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