Conservative anti-vaxxer cardinal contracts COVID

Cardinal has clashed with Pope Francis over liberal beliefs

Most days during the coronavirus pandemic, Cardinal Raymond L. Burke could be found strolling the streets of Rome maskless and carrying rosary beads. The 73-year-old conservative cardinal was an early critic of social distancing and, later, an unabashed skeptic of the vaccine.

Last Tuesday, Burke announced he haS tested positive for the coronavirus. Now, the cardinal is in a hospital bed in his native Wisconsin, breathing with the help of a ventilator.

“Doctors are encouraged by his progress,” Burke’s press team tweeted Saturday night. “(His Eminence) faithfully prayed the Rosary for those suffering from the virus. … Let us now pray the Rosary for him.”

The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Sunday.

A former archbishop of St. Louis, Burke was an outspoken conservative figure in the mid-2000s. In 2004, he refused to give Communion to thenMassachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry because the Democrat was pro-choice. In 2007, Burke resigned from the board of a Catholic hospital to protest its invitation for Sheryl Crow, who is also pro-choice, to play at a benefit concert.

Two years later, he excoriated the University of Notre Dame for giving former president Barack Obama an honorary degree. In an interview, Burke said that Catholics who voted for Obama “collaborated with evil.”

During the global pandemic, Burke spoke out against vaccine mandates, claiming it “violates the integrity of its citizens.”

“While the state can provide reasonable regulations for the safeguarding of health, it is not the ultimate provider of health. God is,” he said during a May 2020 address.

Burke also repeated false information about vaccines, claiming that the vaccine injected “a kind of microchip” … that permits people to “be controlled by the State regardng health and about other matters which we can only imagine.”

The cardinal further condemned the use of abortionderived cells in vaccine development as “rightly abhorrent.”

But his comments were misleading — both Pfizer and Moderna used cell lines derived from fetal tissue taken from elective abortions in the 1970s and 1980s to test the vaccines. In a statement last December, the Vatican called the vaccines “morally acceptable.” Pope Francis received the Pfizer vaccine and, in February, the Vatican City governor said employees who do not get vaccinated could be sanctioned or fired.

Burke did not reveal whether he got the vaccine.

The cardinal’s conservative opinions caught the attention of then-Pope Benedict XVI, who appointed Burke to run the Vatican’s highest court in 2008, making him the church’s most senior-ranking American. Benedict promoted Burke to cardinal in 2010.

However, Burke soon clashed with Francis, known for his liberal beliefs. In an interview with BuzzFeed News in October 2014, Burke criticized Francis, claiming he had “done a lot of harm.” He noted Francis’s comments on homosexuality: “The pope is not free to change the church’s teachings with regard to the immorality of homosexual acts.”

In an interview that month with Vida Nueva, a Spanish Catholic publication, Burke questioned Francis’s leadership.

By November 2014, Francis had demoted Burke giving him a ceremonial title as patron of the charity Knights of Malta.

Burke continued to speak out on controversial topics. In 2015, he said he feared the church was becoming too feminine. “The feminized environment and the lack of the church’s effort to engage men has led many men to simply opt out,” he said.