American Cardinal Raymond Burke was recently dismissed as a "disappointed man" upset over the loss of his power by fellow Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, coordinator of Pope Francis's "C9" council of cardinal advisers.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, head of the Vatican's liturgy department, was praised by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI as someone with whom the liturgy is in "good hands."

Maradiaga's comments on Burke came in a new interview book with his fellow Salesian, Father Antonio Carriero, titled Solo il Vangelo è rivoluzionario ("Only the Gospel is Revolutionary"), published in Italy by Piemme.

Burke, who was removed by Pope Francis in November 2014 as head of the Vatican's supreme court, is widely seen as the leader of the conservative opposition to the pontiff's document on the family Amoris Laetita and its cautious opening to Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

He was among four cardinals who submitted a set of questions, called dubia, to Francis, seeking to dispel what they described as "grave disorientation and great confusion" created by the document.

In the new interview, Maradiaga comes out swinging.

"That cardinal who sustains this," Maradiaga said, referring to the criticism of Amoris, "is a disappointed man, in that he wanted power and lost it. He thought he was the maximum authority in the United States.

"He's not the magisterium," Maradiaga said, referring to the authority to issue official teaching. "The Holy Father is the magisterium, and he's the one who teaches the whole Church. This other [person] speaks only his own thoughts, which don't merit further comment.

"They are the words," Maradiaga said, "of a poor man." Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Crux

According to La Stampa, the Cardinal stressed among other things that the Church definitely needs a Congregation for the Laity.

"We have a Congregation for Bishops, for Religious Life and for the Clergy, but the Laity only gets a Pontifical Council even though they are a majority within the Church.

"We cannot go on like this," he told French daily La Croix.

"After the Second Vatican Council all the laity had was a Secretariat. A Pontifical Council is limited because it has no legal power. This is why we need a real Congregation."

According to the cardinal, within this Congregation there should also be a Pontifical Council for the Family, headed by a married couple.

Asking "why not", the cardinal called the initiative of having a married couple heading a Pontifical Council "a wonderful sign".

"It would be great to have a Congregation for the Laity within the Church. I can tell you that the Spirit is pushing in this direction. More and more lay men and women are taking the joint responsibility of being leaders in the Church," he said.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga was personally chosen by Pope Francis to advise the him on matters including reform of the curia.

Sources

• La Croix
• La Stampa
• Image: La Croix

Delivering the keynote address at Friday's opening of the University of Dallas Ministry Conference in Las Colinas, the Honduran archbishop and chairman of Pope Francis' circle of advisors, told the conference the church must break down the walls between the ordained hierarchy and the laity, with all Catholics becoming "the suffering servant."

"There is not a dual classification of Christians," he said.

"The church as a society of unequals disappears. … We are here to serve, and that requires lowering ourselves to become servants."

"Jesus was not rich. He lived as a poor villager. He didn't want to ingratiate himself with the powers of the world," the Cardinal told the packed hall at the Irving Convention Center.

"If the church has a mission, it is to manifest the deeds of Jesus".

"As Pope Francis said, we have to reach out to the periphery of the world and proclaim the Kingdom of God," he said.

"Even Jesus didn't proclaim himself. He proclaimed the kingdom."

Cardinal Maradiaga said the church must show herself as Samaritans on earth.

"The church should always come equipped with faith and with generosity to humanity," he said.

This puts the church at odds with a world where "financial capital wields over a billion human beings a power of life and death - who has the right to live on this planet and who is doomed to die."

In closing, Cardinal Maradiaga spoke of the "cardiac of selfishness" that afflicts so many.

"Many of us are guilty of cardiac insufficiency," he said, but God offers the pacemaker that will make hearts strong again.

"We have to ask the Holy Spirit to give us a spiritual pacemaker," he said, "and then woe is me if I don't go and preach the gospel."

Sources

• Dallas News
• Salt and Light TV

"This wish is eagerly shared by [all] the continents," Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras said in an interview with The Sunday Times, London.

Another London newspaper, The Telegraph, said the cardinal's comments were backed by Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. "It is a natural step — there is a move towards putting more women in key roles where they are qualified," he said.

The Sunday Times quoted a Vatican prelate as saying: "Francis's predecessor [Benedict XVI] started to promote women by appointing them to be the secretaries of some departments. But if there are cases where a woman can do a better job than a man as the head of a department, then why not?"

In his general audience on April 3, the Pope noted how women were the first witnesses of the Resurrection, adding that, "The apostles and disciples find it harder to believe in the risen Christ, not the women however!"

"This was a message about the importance of the role of women in the Church," said Carlo Marroni, a Vatican expert at the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore. "That said, the question still gets handled cautiously as it touches on the issue of ordination for women."

Women have taken on a number of key roles at the Vatican, including Sister Nicla Spezzati, the undersecretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Flaminia Giovanelli, the undersecretary at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

St Peter's Basilica is run by a woman, Maria Cristina Carlo-Stella, who is the head of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the Vatican office in charge of the church.

"But that is still very few," said Marco Politi, a Vatican watcher at the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano. "Look at Germany and the US, where women have many key positions in the dioceses."

Sources:

The Sunday Times

The Telegraph

Image: Rome Reports