Pope Francis has reportedly kicked conservative US Cardinal Raymond Burke out of his Vatican apartment and stripped him of his salary after he criticized the pontiff’s pro-LGBT stance.
It was gathered that the Pope decided to punish Burke by revoking his right to a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary in the second such radical action against an American prelate this month.
According to Mail Online, Francis told a meeting of the heads of Vatican offices last week that he was moving against Burke because he was a source of ‘disunity’ in the church, said one of the participants at the November 20 meeting.
Burke’s privileges of having a Vatican apartment and salary as a retired cardinal have been removed because he was using the benefits against the church, said another person who was subsequently briefed on the pope´s measures.
Both insiders spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to reveal the details.
Burke has not received any notification of measures being taken, his secretary said in a text message Tuesday to The Associated Press.
This comes a week after Pope Francis hosted 120 Transgender women at the Vatican to mark the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Poor.
Burke, a 75-year-old canon lawyer whom Francis had fired as the Vatican’s high court justice in 2014, has become one of the most outspoken critics of the pope, his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, and his reform project to make the church more responsive to the needs of ordinary faithful.
Burke is said to have joined other conservative cardinals in issuing formal questions to the pontiff, known as ‘Dubai,’ asking him to clarify questions of doctrine that upset conservatives and traditionalists.
In the first, they asked Francis to clarify his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, and Francis never replied. In the second, they asked whether same-sex couples could receive church blessings – and received a conditional maybe in response.
