Politic or not, Burke was a true pastor
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
This Sunday, Archbishop Raymond Burke will celebrate a farewell Mass at the
Cathedral Basilica. If past gatherings are any measure, Burke's admirers
will
swarm the church for a warm send-off. His detractors, dizzy with glee since
Burke announced his impending departure in June, will watch the supporters
and
wonder: How can they be so sorry to see him go?
After all, everyone knows that Burke is not "pastoral." A pastoral bishop
makes
decisions based on poll numbers and the "signs of the times," not the musty
dictates of scripture or tradition. He affirms members of his flock just as
they are, stays out of the crosshairs of powerful politicians and leaves the
big thinking about contentious moral issues to the real experts:
left-leaning
theologians at American universities who know more than the stodgy old guys
in
Rome.
By this standard, Burke clearly flunks the pastoral test.
Consider his behavior when he first arrived here: Burke proclaimed that
pro-choice Catholic politicians should be denied the sacrament of Holy
Communion if they persist in backing legalized abortion. Then he admonished
pro-choice Catholics who support those politicians because of their abortion
stance to repent.
Of course, the Catholic Church has opposed abortion for eons. And Burke made
an
airtight canon-law case for his position in a 2007 journal article that many
Vatican watchers cite as a reason for his recent promotion to the church's
equivalent of Supreme Court Chief Justice. Burke now may rank as the world's
foremost authority in church law, second only to Pope Benedict XVI himself,
and
his promotion may be Benedict's way of ensuring that Burke's views
reverberate
throughout the church.
But never mind all that. Talking about the inviolable dignity of unborn
human
life is not pastoral. Politically correct — ahem, pastoral — church leaders
dodge discussions of abortion. Sin is so pre-Vatican II.
The same goes for fighting heresy. Truly pastoral prelates know better than
to
tangle with media-savvy Catholics careening toward schism, such as the two
St.
Louis women who participated in faux priestly ordinations last year or the
leaders of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church who spent six decades resisting
diocesan attempts to make their parish conform to the same structure as all
other St. Louis parishes.
The Vatican repeatedly has backed Burke's stands in these cases. And the
bizarre antics of the renegade Polish priest hired against Burke's
objections
have divided St. Stan's and driven several of its board members to repent
and
reconcile with Burke.
Still, a pastoral leader would have let the rebels do their own thing. As
Jesus
said, "Live and let live." Or something like that.
There is, of course, another view of the good pastor. In this view, a pastor
cares about principle more than public opinion. He regards himself as the
guardian of a faith he did not invent, a faith he has no right to reinvent
when
its teachings fall out of fashion. A shepherd in this mold defends gospel
values and church teachings, whether convenient or inconvenient.
Such pastors rarely become media darlings. But they do make a difference.
After
fewer than five years, Burke will leave St. Louis with bursting-at-the-seams
seminary enrollment, a reinvigorated pro-life movement, stirrings of
liturgical
renewal and a flock that no longer can plead ignorance about what the
Catholic
Church teaches.
This legacy — along with Burke's down-on-the-farm humility, self-deprecating
humor and habit of sticking around a gathering to greet every person who
wants
to say hello — has won him more fans than most press reports suggest. They
know
from firsthand experience what a true pastor is: a man who cares enough to
tell
them the truth, no matter how unpopular it may be.
Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television host and St.
Louis-based
fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.