Cardinal Raymond Burke: ‘Feminized’ church and altar girls caused priest shortage

c. 2015 Religion News Service

(RNS) Cardinal Raymond Burke, a senior American churchman in Rome who has been one of the most outspoken critics of Pope Francis’ push for reform, is roiling the waters yet again, this time arguing that the Catholic Church has become too “feminized.” Burke, who was recently demoted from the Vatican’s highest court to a ceremonial philanthropic post, also pointed to the introduction of altar girls for why fewer men are joining the priesthood.

“Young boys don’t want to do things with girls. It’s just natural,” Burke said in an interview published on January 5. “I think that this has contributed to a loss of priestly vocations.

“It requires a certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of (a) priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys,” the former archbishop of St. Louis told Matthew James Christoff, who heads a Catholic men’s ministry that called the New Emangelization Project. “If we are not training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that vocations have fallen dramatically,” Burke said.

The Catholic Church dropped its ban on girls assisting the priests during Mass in 1983, and today it is common to see more girls than boys helping on the altar. Only one U.S. diocese, in Lincoln, Nebraska, still bars altar girls, though a number of individual parishes have barred them in hopes of encouraging more boys and men to consider the all-male priesthood.

In the interview, Burke also blamed gay clergy for the church’s sexual abuse crisis, saying priests “who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity” were the ones who molested children. Researchers have disputed that claim, and experts note that the reported rise in the number of gay men entering the priesthood since the 1980s coincided with a sharp drop-off in abuse cases.

Burke, 66, spoke to Christoff in December during a visit to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where Burke served as bishop in the 1990s before being named archbishop of St. Louis. In 2008, then-Pope Benedict XVI called Burke to the Vatican to head the church’s top court and made him a cardinal. That prestigious position lent weight to his increasingly sharp and direct criticisms of Francis, who succeeded Benedict in March 2013.

In an unusual move, Francis effectively demoted Burke in November, shifting him from his job in the Roman Curia to a largely ceremonial post as patron of the Order of Malta, a global Catholic charitable organization based in Rome. Vatican observers suspected the switch would actually give Burke more freedom to speak his mind, and in this latest interview the cardinal doubled down on themes he has often struck: that liberalizing changes in both society and the church, especially “radical feminism,” have gravely undermined the Catholic faith since the 1970s.

Burke said he recalled “young men telling me that they were, in a certain way, frightened by marriage because of the radicalizing and self-focused attitudes of women that were emerging at that time. These young men were concerned that entering a marriage would simply not work because of a constant and insistent demanding of rights for women.”

He said that “the radical feminist movement strongly influenced the Church” as well.

The focus on women’s issues, he said, plus “a complete collapse” of teaching the faith and “rampant liturgical experimentation,” led the church to become “very feminized.” That turned off men who “respond to rigor and precision and excellence,” Burke said.

“Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women,” he said. “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.”

Burke, a liturgical traditionalist as well as a doctrinal conservative who is renowned for wearing elaborate silk and lace vestments while celebrating Mass, also said that “men need to dress and act like men in a way that is respectful to themselves, to women and to children.”

Baptism of the Lord

Image: Baptism of Christ, 
Cappella Palatina di Palermo,
mid 12th century, from Art in the Christian Tradition, 
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

January 11, 2015

Click here for scripture readings.

Have you ever seen the struggle of will between a small child and his mother at the dinner table?

The child wants to eat only macaroni and cheese.

The mother insists that the child must also eat vegetables, fruits, bread, and meat.

The child balks stubbornly.

The mother knows what is best for the child, but getting him or her to do what is best is no small task.

It takes great patience, doesn't it parents?

How do you get someone to do what is best for them when they do not want to do it?

Our text today is another such struggle of wills.

This time it is Simon Peter who is struggling against God.

You know, the man who was made head of the church!

Is there a more stubborn disciple than Peter in the gospel story?

If so, I do not know him.

Fortunately God reacts to stubborn disciples the way a good parent reacts to stubborn children-

God corrects without rejection.

God is patient.

God strives to mold the will, using that strength for good, rather than to break the spirit.

What can we learn from Peter in this story?

I. To embrace the wideness of God's mercy, we must release our fantasy that God loves us better than other people.

In the book of Acts, Peter is about to be placed at the forefront of a radical breakthrough of the Church-

the acceptance of Gentiles into Christian faith.

But Peter is an unwilling leader in this movement at first.

He wants to cling to exclusive theology, the way a child clings to a diet of macaroni and cheese.

Peter was raised to believe that Jews, and Jews alone, were God's people.

Just as some present day Christians claim that only their brand of Christianity is kosher.

Yet God challenged Peter to move beyond the narrowness of this sense of privilege.

God chose the Jews, yes.

But God chose the Jews as a sign that God had chosen all people.

It was never meant to be a sign of exclusive love.

Rather, God's election and grace are the first signs of the inclusiveness of love.

Children learn the song, which is not quite politically correct these days:

Jesus loves the little children, All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, They are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.

This was a difficult lesson for Peter to learn.

And truthfully, many of us who know the words of that children's song have not learned to believe its message in our hearts.

Right?

II. The wideness of God's mercy can be learned, and it makes all the difference in the way we see the world and live our lives.

Even Peter could be taught.

that should give us all hope

God repeated his vision three times to Peter before Peter began to catch on.

But that's all right.

God is patient.

You should know that God has not given up on you and me yet, either.

And when Peter finally learns his lesson, he is a new man.

Suddenly he discovered sisters and brothers where he had previously seen only foreigners.

He found companions where he had only found competitors before.

This chapter of Acts tells not just the conversion of the gentile Cornelius to Christianity.

It also tells the continued conversion of Peter into the Christian God always knew he could be.

What would happen if you and I learned to see our world as God sees it?

What if boundaries between countries, and barriers of language, and invisible walls of zoning and economic class became meaningless-

or better, if they became offensive to us?

What if color of skin, and political persuasion, sexual orientation and type of occupation became less important than character and potential?

Imagine a place where everyone, and I mean everyone, felt valued and loved on an equal basis?

There is a name for such a fantasy place.

A place where the vision is – even if it’s not sometimes the reality – but the vision is that all people are accepted equally.

Let me name it for you.

It is called the Church.

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

January 1, 2015

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On this day every year we celebrate a World Day of Peace and also have a solemn celebration in honor of Mary Mother of God. 

How are these two commemorations related to one another? 

We name Mary Queen of Peace. 

What does the Gospel story tell us about her that inspires us to consider her the patron saint of the peace we long for? 

A good place to begin is with the song that she sings in her meeting with her cousin Elizabeth, the song we call Magnificat from its first word in Latin. 

This song is the longest speech of Mary or of any other woman in the Gospels.  What can we learn from it 

The Magnificat proclaims a new world order in which people meet on the same level.

The proud are scattered, so they are everywhere. 

Is this so that they might come face to face with the lowly? 

Proverbs says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" When the proud are scattered, do they discover this amazing blessing of the lowly? 

Is that what confuses and confounds their thoughts? 

Perhaps being scattered is a blessing in disguise. 

When mighty rulers are brought down from their thrones are they confronted with the powerful goodness of the common people? 

Are the lowly raised to high places as Mary has been raised, so that they can speak without fear to those who appear far above them? 

If Mary has been so exalted, is there not hope for all the lowly? 

When the rich are sent away empty, do they realize their true hunger?  Does this hunger not only for food but for God bring them back to accept humbly the food their brothers and sisters will share with them?   Mary's song can only be good news if its message is not "reversal" but mutuality.

If she proclaims simply that the oppressors will become the oppressed, then there is no hope for us. 

What she proclaims is not this "no-win" situation but true shalom.  Shalom is not only peace, as we often assume. 

Shalom is that situation in which everyone has what is necessary for a full life. 

Those who thought they had to trust in their own power and lord it over others discover that the One who has all power has come down to meet them in their lowliness. 

Those who hoarded material goods out of fear that they might someday not have enough discover that God truly gives us our daily bread and that we are meant to share it with one another. 

The arrogant who relied only on their own gifts realize that true blessedness comes through working together. 

This is the message of Mary's Magnificat. 

This is the blessedness that Elizabeth proclaims. 

But this shalom is not easily accomplished. 

Fear is a powerful deterrent. 

Today we are plagued by a culture of fear. 

We think the way to eradicate it is by making war against terrorism.  We live in suspicion of one another and of any stranger. 

We gate our communities and search our travelers. 

We hunker down and hope for better days. 

But Mary's song is not a song of fear but of freedom. 

Imagine what the world would be like if the "world powers" offered to meet smaller, weaker nations humbly,

offering their resources in exchange for the wisdom these other peoples have to share? 

Imagine what would happen if we used all our technological wizardry to distribute the food we are well capable of producing so that no one went hungry and no one was overfed? 

I wonder: Can we allow ourselves to imagine?  

The Epiphany of the Lord

Image: He, Qi. Adoration of the Magi, 
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

January 4, 2015

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With the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, the reality and significance of Christmas have come full circle.

The birth that we celebrated just an octave ago is now being universally acclaimed,  and the repercussions of that great moment in time must also be universally experienced.

In a sermon on today's feast, Baptist minister, educator and author Peter J. Gomes compared what he refers to as "epiphany business" to a stone that is dropped into the water;

there it produces a series of concentric ripples that grow larger and wider until the entire surface imperceptibly is witness to the initial movement of that stone.

What began on the very private annunciation of an angel messenger to Mary and what was made manifest to the shepherds

will be made increasingly clear to an ever expanding audience of witnesses.

Slowly but surely, the concentric circles of "epiphany business" reach out to touch and embrace more and more witnesses, until all are included and illumined.

From now through Easter Sunday, every aspect of the Christ event should be understood as an epiphany of Jesus that engages not only our attention but also our faith and our hope.

Through these manifestations, we will grow in that knowledge of Christ that invites us to deeper, fuller and firmer commitment.

To put it another way, Epiphany is at once a celebration of Christ and a challenge for the People of God.

By virtue of the reality of Christ, manifested as light and life for the world,

we who belong to Christ are to live lives that are similar manifestations of light and life.

Moreover, the challenge of Epiphany also requires that we be willing to see, hear, touch and attend to the presence of God

that is made manifest in predictable places and people as well as in those people and places where it is least expected.

The concentric circles of "epiphany business" reminds all of us together,

with our differences and diversities, our various languages, cultures, customs and traditions

all of us are to bring a diverse light to a world darkened by human sin.

Recall the mandate of Jesus to his own: "you are the light of the world ...your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify God".

In his book entitled Psalms for Zero Gravity, Edward Hays gave voice to the difficult challenge of being light in one of his poignant prayers:

"O God, how lonely it is to be the light of the world,

to be your justice and love in a world devoid of them,

to be kindness and compassion in a world of competition.

Yes, I find it lonely being luminous.

As all alone as our solitary sun, at times,

that's how I feel, Radiant God.

How hard to be the light of the world,

to hold a glowing warmth in a world so cold.

So, forgive me, Beloved,

for being just a momentary shooting star in the darkness of my world."

Lonely or not, momentary or not, hard or not, this is the challenge of Epiphany.

No doubt, Jesus must also have experienced the loneliness and difficulty of being the light of the world but he did not relent in his struggle.

Today we celebrate him both as sun that enlightens the world as well as the Son who redeemed it from the darkness of sin and death.

Today we are also called to renew our resolve to be like Jesus, a sun that lights the world despite the loneliness and the struggle.

Hays suggest that 99 percent of disciples prefer to be moons that only reflect the light of their Savior Sun.

Rather than be enflamed with love for God, their light only faintly mirrors the light of Christ.

However, Jesus did not say "You are the moon of the world."

He said, "I am the light,"

"You are light.

"Therefore, each of us must choose today what we should be for the world,

a sun (if only a momentary shooting star)

or a moon.

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

December 28, 2014

Click here for scripture readings.

On this, the feast of the Holy Family, we’re is invited to reflect, not only upon that holy threesome who have figured so importantly in our salvation history,

but also upon all the other families that comprise the universal family of humankind.

Unfortunately, and due to a variety of factors, the ties that bind us one to another within our global network of families have suffered a series of assaults over the past several decades.

This is a fact that need not be argued; the evidence of relational weakness and even decay is obvious and this weakness affects every one of us to one degree or another.

Now, I’m not just talking about the nuclear family, I’m talking about all families, traditional or otherwise, who are joined together in love.

Attacking families just because they don’t necessarily “look like” the traditional father, mother and two-point-whatever children is just another symptom of our being scared for the family unit.

Rather than lament the fact and belabor the point, our attention might be better directed and our efforts better spent in trying to effect change, conversion and growth within the family unit.

"If we can change the culture of our families" says Steven W. Vannoy [i] "surely that change will radiate out to touch those around us. "In this way, our society will be improved from the inside out, family by family.

The following fable offers a powerful example of the contagious grace of change.

The membership of a once numerous order of monks dwindled over the years, until there were only five brothers left in what had been a thriving community.

For years, people from the surrounding area had been drawn to the monastery in search of the learning and spiritual renewal they found there.

Now, no one ever visited as the spirit of the place and its inhabitants seemed to be slowly dying.

One day, however, a rabbi happened by to visit.

When he was about to leave, one of the brothers asked the rabbi if he had any advice on how to revitalize themselves and make their monastery a spiritual center once again.

After a few moments, the rabbi replied, "The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."

Flabbergasted, the brothers replied, "The Messiah among us? Impossible!"

As the weeks passed, the brothers puzzled over the rabbi's startling revelation.

If the Messiah were here, who would it be?

Maybe, Brother Timothy. . . he's the abbot and in his capacity as leader, he could surely be chosen to be the Messiah ....

It couldn't be Bro. Mark; He's always so argumentative, but, he's usually right

...Or maybe, it's Bro. Pius who tends the garden and the animals. He could probably nourish a troubled world if he were the Messiah.

Surely, it could be Bro. Dominic; he's studious, learned and familiar with all the great spiritual writers.

 It couldn't be Peter, could it?

Certainly, the Messiah couldn't be the one who cleaned toilets, dirty laundry and scrubbed the pots and pans each day.

Or, could it?

Since the monks were unable to determine which one of them was the Messiah, they began to treat one another as though each were the one.

Moreover, just in case he himself might be the Messiah, each monk began to treat himself with new respect and to conduct himself with greater dignity.

Within a few weeks, the monastery's occasional visitors were awed by the love, goodness and revitalized spirituality they experienced.

They returned again and again and brought new friends along.

Soon, a few young men asked to be admitted to the order and the monastery thrived again.

Imagine the possibilities for growth and renewal if each family were to take to heart the rabbi's words, "the Messiah is one of you. "

How much more might spouses love and cherish one another...

how much more might parents value their children, protect them, teach them and lovingly attend to their needs ...

how much more might children honor and appreciate their parents.

How much more might we look upon love as the only important criteria for determining what is & is not a family

If each member of every family were to reverence one another as the Messiah, i.e., as Jesus who is our Savior and brother,

how much might that strengthen and secure those familial bonds that are the infrastructure, without which our society has no future.

Today, the love shared among the Holy Family offers us both a witness and a challenge.

To love one another as they did requires that we look beyond the faults and idiosyncrasies that annoy us in order to discover the Christ who lives in each of us.

Such love requires that we replace nitpicking, nagging and criticism with wise counsel, humbly offered, and encouragement and praise, generously bestowed.

Such was the love that became incarnate among us and which we reveled in celebrating at Christmas.

Such is also the love that has brought us to the end of this year

If our children’s children’s children are to look upon the next millennium, it is this love which will make it possible.

Christmas Day 2014

Birth of Christ . 
Giotto, 1266?-1337 

December 25, 2014

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There's an ancient legend that when God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, they were created through the use of words:

"Let there be light," and there was light.

"Let the waters teem with living creatures," and it was done.

            Everything that God made with words was good.

            But God was especially proud and fond of the man and woman because they contained God;           a part of God's life-giving spirit.

            This made the devil jealous and angry.

            And so, one day, when God was enjoying the company of the man and the woman, the devil "happened" by.

            He walked up to God, and with a sneer asked him what he liked so much about these creatures.

            When God was ready to speak, the devil craftily put a bond upon his tongue. God could not talk!

            God's creative power was in words and the devil had bound that power!

            The devil laughed at God and struck the man and woman many times very hard.

            As time passed, the devil came back to mock God.

            He scoffed at God's silence and helplessness. God responded by holding up one finger. "One?" asked the devil.

            "You want to say one word, is that it?"

            "Yes," nodded God, pleading with sad eyes and urgent hands.

            The arrogant devil thought to himself, "What harm can God do with just one word?"

            So he removed the bond from God's tongue.

            Then God spoke one word in a whisper in the middle of the night.

            God spoke it for the man and woman, and it brought them great joy.

            It was a word that gathered up all the love and forgiveness and creativity stored up the whole time of the long silence.

            The one word spoken was "Jesus!"

            God has spoken this "word" to us once and for all and won't take it back:

            Jesus is with us and for us for all time.

            And he will always be enough. 

Christmas Eve 2014

Image: "Testify to the Light," 
© Jan Richardson

December 24, 2014

Click here for scripture readings.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
What do you do when you love someone?
Whether it's a couple falling in love, a mother to a child, a friend to a friend, a husband to a wife...
you want to communicate your love.
And so you say, "I love you."

Sometimes you make a phone call to the beloved in the middle of the day for no good reason.
Or you leave a welcome home note or write a love letter or compose a poem.
You communicate.
And you act.

You want to show your love.
So you give the one you love a hug, or fix them a cup of tea, or listen, or you ask them to marry you.
You show your love.

In much the same way, God wants to communicate and show his love for us.
For thousands of years God has been talking to us of his love.
It began at creation -- when God expressed himself and spoke the world into being.
It continued with the creation of humanity in his divine image, and when he called Israel to be his people,
and when he rescued them from slavery in Egypt.

And so we might know better how to live our lives, he gave us the law, and spoke to us through the prophets.
This is how God expressed his love for us -- over and over by word and action...
but it wasn't enough.

It wasn't breaking through the hard defensive shell of our sinful nature.
It wasn't reaching all of God's creation...
it hadn't broken through to the gentiles...
it had not conquered sin and death.
So God did something new.
God did something unheard of, never expected, something considered scandalous...
God communicated to us by taking every ounce of love he had, every word of hope and courage,
and he sent it to us in the most fragile and vulnerable of packages: in the flesh of a newborn baby.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The Word became flesh...
Jesus Christ is the full communication of God's love for us.
A merciful God -- with all power and knowledge –
chose the humility of human flesh and became powerless and dependent.

Our images of the birth of Jesus are hopelessly colored by years of Hallmark cards and made for television specials.
Mary is always sweet, clean and serene.
Joseph stands stoically by at all times.
Jesus never cries.
These are sentimental images -- and weaken the harsh reality of that night.
Several years ago in New York City on Christmas Eve, St. George's Episcopal Church was getting ready for its annual evening service, which always included carols, instrumentalists, dancing and a living representation of the Nativity.

This year, as people started to arrive, they were greeted by the sight of some street people on the front steps.
A man and woman with a shopping cart and a bundle of rags. Several people stopped to offer help and some invited them in out of the cold.
They politely declined all offers.
Finally, one of the vestry members approached the Rector and said, "We've got a problem."
He wanted to call the police and have them remove the street people.
Eventually a patrol car came by and the people were asked to move across the street where they wouldn't disturb the worshipers.

It was a beautiful service that night, and the nave was full, standing room only.
Finally, the climatic moment arrived:
Dancers dressed in white appeared at the back of the nave to lead the holy family down the center aisle.
As the holy family entered you could hear gasps of recognition. The holy family was the homeless couple from the front steps. The baby Jesus was the bundle of rags they had held in their arms.
As the angels led the holy family toward the altar they wept, as did most of the congregation.
Jesus entered the world as a homeless child, in utter humility and poverty.

And on this dark evening, two thousand years later, he awaits to enter our hearts in the same way.
He waits patiently, with great humility, to be invited to come and live within us.
And when we do invite him in, it is as though love itself begins to grow within us.
God sent Jesus so that we can be born anew, by the Holy Spirit, and become children of God.
God sent Jesus to break the power of sin and death that rule our lives.
And as Love grows within our hearts, we find ourselves proclaiming that unconditional Love to others.
We become the ones with beautiful feet, preaching the good news of God's salvation on the mountain tops.
We begin to recognize and honor God's presence in the humble and the poor...
and reach out with a love beyond our own.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And dwelt among us.

Tonight we listen and remember and hear again the great telling of God's love for us.
With humble hearts, let us receive again the good news of Jesus Christ and return our thanks.

Merry Christmas