How Pope Francis just dropped another bomb on the Republican Party

Giving the boot to Cardinal Raymond Burke, an anti-LGBTQ MAGA extremist who was at Trump's Bedminster golf club over the summer, sent a shockwave across the Atlantic.

Pope Francis this week booted Cardinal Raymond Burke, an influential, bigoted anti-LGBTQ crusader, rabid Trump supporter, and COVID denialist—and the leading critic of Pope Francis from day one of his papacy—from his palatial, 5000-square-foot, rent-free Vatican apartment.

Francis also cut off the retired 75-year-old cardinal’s salary, which amounted to about $5500 per month.

While this is about internal church politics and a lot of Vatican palace intrigue, it is also another shot across the bow, a warning by Francis to the conservatives in the U.S. church, and, by default, many in the MAGA movement and the radicalized GOP.

And it’s the biggest shot yet, as Burke is a superstar among the mega-MAGA U.S. Catholic church leaders who’ve become deeply involved in Republican politics and joined forces with evangelicals in the Christian nationalist movement.

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The outrage in the U.S.among the MAGA faithful in the Catholic Church as well as among conservative pundits has been erupting like an out-of-control volcano.

Conservative Catholic author Raymond Arroyo declared, “We have reached a new level of Papal vindictiveness.” Joseph Strickland, the former Catholic bishop of Tyler, Texas, and another harsh critic of Francis whom Francis removed just weeks ago after Strickland refused to step down, called it an “atrocity.”

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat slammed the pope, writing that “he has encouraged the church’s progressives to push the envelope as far as possible..[and] he has pushed conservatives toward crisis, paranoia and revolt.”

Break out the violins.

First off, Burke will be more than fine financially, having cashed in for years, writing books and speaking on the Christian nationalist circuit in the U.S.—including by attacking Francis as someone who is destroying the Catholic Church—and becoming deeply tied to right-wing groups and GOP politicians and public figures.

Secondly, Burke more than deserved to finally be booted—having already been demoted by Francis years earlier—because he is increasingly questioning the pope’s authority. As the pope’s biographer, Austin Ivereigh, wrote:

Burke has been allowed constantly to undermine the pope’s authority, setting himself against the papacy as a counter-magisterium, and building a lucrative career portraying himself as the true guardian of the tradition.

But while the Pope’s patience personally is virtually limitless, there is a point where he must act: in justice, and for the good of the Church.

Previous popes, such as Benedict, acted more swiftly and more harshly than Francis ever has when it came to critics. Francis has, in fact, often said he welcomed the debate. But Burke’s gone way too far, collecting a check and tearing down the guy paying him and subsidizing his apartment. As a Vatican official told Reuters, he was “working against the Church and against the papacy” and had sown “disunity.”

This amounted to something “like accusing the president of sedition,” David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, told the New York Times.

Burke, who has called homosexuality "evil,” is also dangerous, having backed dreadfully harmful MAGA and Qanon conspiracy theories.

In 2021, he promoted the demented claim that microchips in COVID vaccines were implanted “under the skin of every person, so that at any moment, he or she can be controlled regarding health and regarding other matters, which we can only imagine as a possible object of control by the state.” (Shortly thereafter, he contracted COVID and was on a ventilator for a while, in grave condition.)

I’ve written recently about the long-term change—glacial change, which is the speed of the Vatican—that Francis is making in the church on issues such as homosexuality, planning for when he’s gone by putting other reformers in place throughout the Vatican, and how that will have a political impact on the Christian nationalist movement in the U.S. and the GOP in the future. And you can read that here.

Regarding the more immediate impact of Burke’s booting, however, there are clear implications for the GOP. Burke, who praised Donald Trump when he was elected in 2016 for his “pro-life issues, family issues, and also issues regarding religious freedom,” was at Trump’s Bedminster golf club this past summer with radical MAGA podcaster Doug Billings, who attacks the “woke left” as a danger to society.

Burke has been a tool of the GOP, as someone in the church among the traditionalists who could be used as a representative of the Catholic hierarchy. And he works with other cardinals and bishops in the U.S. church who back his radical right-wing positions and give the GOP the ability to use the Catholic Church to imply the church backs its radical positions.

Burke is part of the Knights of Malta, an order of far-right Catholics founded in the 12th century that also includes as a member Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society, the influential right-wing legal group that, working with the GOP, has installed largely far-right Catholics on the Supreme Court, including Amy Coney Barrrett, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

In 2013, Burke joined Republican politicians in condemning the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act, saying it would “lead to death for individuals and eventually it will destroy our culture.” Backing the GOP’s vicious anti-trans panic, Burke wrote on his website that “we witness the devastating effect on individuals and families of the so-called ‘gender theory’” which he blamed for “great evils like pestilence.”

That Francis took action so strongly now sends a message that those like Burke are marginalized and represent an extreme in the U.S. church, where 82% of Catholics have a favorable view of the pope and where a majority of Catholics support marriage equality, abortion rights, and climate change initiatives. And it warns the MAGA operatives in the church that there will be ramifications if they challenge him.

Francis exposing how extreme people like Burke and other Trumpists in the U.S. church are as we head into the 2024 election, can only be a good thing.