Vatican City, Apr 19, 2011 / 04:00 am
Upon the sixth anniversary of Benedict XVI’s election to the papacy on April 19, Cardinal Raymond Burke told CNA of his “profound goodness” and praised his pontificate as one of “great dynamism” and “intense evangelization.”
Cardinal Burke, the American cardinal who runs what is often called the Church’s Supreme Court, offered as his first reaction, “Well it’s certainly been a period of very intense evangelization.”
“I think the Holy Father has shown he has many outstanding qualities not least his ability to teach very profound things in a very accessible way. Whether that’s through his visits, his Wednesday audiences or his many homilies, without exaggeration he manages to make the very profound very understandable. And I hear that from so many people I meet.”
Certainly, Cardinal Burke is better placed than most to assess the papacy of Benedict XVI. In 2008, the Holy Father personally asked the then-Archbishop of St. Louis to move to Rome to head up the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. That’s the highest court on matters regarding the internal law of the Church, known as canon law. Then, only last year, the Holy Father elevated Archbishop Burke to the rank of cardinal.