The Pope has demoted the Cardinal Raymond Burke who is the highest ranking United States Cardinal at the Vatican. This Cardinal is a strict conservative, and doesn't really believe in what the Pope is trying to do, namely move the Catholic Church into the 21st century.
Let me say from the start that I am a Catholic, or at least raised a Catholic. I have an on-going discussion with a Catholic Priest in my area who is constantly comparing Democrats to Nazi's, Communists, and Socialists, he never seems to get his insults straight. When the issue of the pedophile priests come up he makes all the excuses that you hear from the church. He always says it was such a small number and he actually doesn't believe that those figures are even true. The point I try to get across to him unsuccessfully is that my problem with the church isn't the priests themselves. People make mistakes, and none of us are immune. The problem is with the cover up the church has employed, and to some degree are still perpetrating. William Donohue who was the head of the Catholic League tried to justify the abuse by saying that most of the abused were not children, but 15 or 16 years old. I guess it's alright to abuse someone when they become teenagers. This Priest found out where I lived and sent me a letter telling me I was ignorant and needed to make a good confession. I had to laugh because in his mind a good confession would make everything all right.
The Pope has a tough road ahead of him with these kind of Priests; Bishops, and Cardinals. Hopefully he will stick with it and get rid of the malcontents.
Too bad for the conservative clergy they don't have the same system as our government. They could just threaten to impeach him, because they don't agree.
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