Dean of Rota Warns Pope Could Strip Card. Burke & others of Cardinalate

I don’t think there’s much chance of this happening. But if it did the Catholic Church blogosphere and Facebook would be very interesting places to be, never mind The Vatican. You thought Trump/Clinton was acrimonious. If this happens, it would get ugly in a hurry with far more troubling consequences.

EWTN UK reports:

Archbishop Pio Vito Pinto, Dean of the Roman Rota, told a conference in Spain that Cardinal Burke and the three cardinals who submitted the dubia to Pope Francis “could lose their Cardinalate” for causing “grave scandal” by making the dubia public. The Dean of the Roman Rota went on to accuse Cardinals Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller and Joachim Meisner of questioning the Holy Spirit. Archbishop Pio Vito Pinto made his astounding accusations during a conference to religious in Spain. 

Archbishop Pio Vito’s indictment against the four cardinals, and other people who question Pope Francis and Amoris Laetitia, was that they not only questioned one synod of bishops on marriage and the family, but two synods, about which,  “The action of the Holy Spirit can not be doubted.”.

The Dean of the Roman Rota went on to clarify that the Pope did not have to strip the four senior cardinals of their “cardinalate”, but that he could do it. He went on to confirm what many commentators have suspected that Pope Francis’ interview with Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, was the Holy Father’s indirect response to the cardinals’ dubia:

During the conference, Pius Vito made clear to those present that the Pope did not respond directly to these four cardinals, “but indirectly told them that they only see white or black, when there are shades of color in the Church.”

I’m not sure what he means here by “questioning the Holy Spirit.”

But I think it can be safely assumed at this point that Pope Francis has no intention of directly responding to the four cardinals. I hope that Archbishop Pinto is not speaking by proxy for Pope Francis with these comments. I hope he’s just going off script. That’s what I hope. Not necessarily what I think.

Dangerous and confusing times.