ROME (CNS): The Democratic Party in the United States “risks transforming itself definitively into a ‘party of death,'” said US Archbishop Raymond Burke, prefect of the Vatican’s highest court.
An interview with the former archbishop of St. Louis was published in the September 27 edition of Avvenire, a daily Catholic newspaper sponsored by the Italian bishops’ conference.
The newspaper asked the archbishop, the new head of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, for his reaction to reports that his Vatican job was designed to get him away from St Louis.
“I have too much respect for the pope to believe that in order to move someone away from a diocese he would nominate him to a very sensitive dicastery like this one,” said the archbishop, whose office is in charge of ensuring that lower church courts correctly administer justice in accordance with canon law.
Archbishop Burke was asked if he knew that the August Democratic National Convention in Denver featured a guest appearance by Sheryl Crow, a musician whose performance at a 2007 benefit for a Catholic children’s hospital the archbishop had opposed because of her support for abortion and embryonic stem-cell research.
“That does not surprise me much,” the archbishop said. “At this point the Democratic Party risks transforming itself definitely into a ‘party of death’ because of its choices on bioethical questions as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in his book, ‘The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts and the Disregard for Human Life.'”
Archbishop Burke said the Democratic Party once was “the party that helped our immigrant parents and grandparents better integrate and prosper in American society. But it is not the same anymore.”
Pro-life Democrats are “rare, unfortunately,” he said.
Archbishop Burke also was asked about being one of a few U.S. bishops to publicly ban Catholic politicians who hold positions contrary to church teaching from receiving Communion.
Archbishop Burke said he is convinced that a 2004 letter from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the U.S. bishops and canon law say “it is not licit to give holy Communion to one who is publicly and obstinately a sinner. And it is logical that one who publicly and obstinately acts in favor of procured abortion enters into this category.”
