Outspoken cardinal hospitalized with COVID after making Wisconsin visit
MADISON, Wis. — Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the Catholic Church’s most outspoken conservatives and a vaccine skeptic, said he has COVID-19, and his staff said he is breathing through a ventilator.
Burke tweeted Aug. 10 that he had caught the virus, was resting comfortably and was receiving excellent medical care.
“Please pray for me as I begin my recovery,” the 73-year-old Burke said in the tweet. “Let us trust in Divine Providence. God bless you.”
On Saturday, his staff tweeted that he has been hospitalized and is on a ventilator, but that doctors were encouraged with his progress.
“[His Eminence] faithfully prayed the Rosary for those suffering from the virus … Let us now pray the Rosary for him,” his staff said.
The Washington Post and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Burke became infected during a visit to Wisconsin and was hospitalized there. Burke was born in Richland Center in southwestern Wisconsin and served as bishop in the Diocese of La Crosse from 1995 to 2004.
Burke moved from the Diocese of La Crosse to become archbishop of St. Louis. He left in August 2008 to oversee the Vatican’s supreme court. He was the first American to hold that position.
Burke has built a reputation as an outspoken conservative. He drew attention in 2004 when he said he would deny Holy Communion to the Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, a Roman Catholic who supports abortion rights.
Pope Francis reassigned Burke from the Vatican court in 2014 after he said the church was like a ship with no rudder.
Burke has become one of Francis’ fiercest critics, joining three other conservative cardinals in asking Francis in 2016 to explain himself after he opened the door to letting civilly remarried Catholics receive Communion.
Burke criticized the University of Notre Dame in 2009 over its plans to give thenPresident Barack Obama an honorary degree because Obama supports abortion rights.