Pope Francis reportedly takes Vatican apartment, salary from

I stumbled across Iveleigh's article myself, and, as I expected, the story was a far cry from what New Daily Compass reported. So we have a cardinal who is totally retired, fulfilling no service whatsoever to the Vatican, and, in the opinion of Pope Francis, is doing a disservice, who the Pope saw fit to no longer provide further unearned and undeserved compensation to.

Can't see how this is in any way "unjust" or "unfair", or how Pope Francis has exceeded his authority, or how this is a "punishment" rather than denial of unearned reward. Nor how Cardinal Burke can be considered to be a "martyr" as the anti-Francis crowd is claiming.

The real injustice here was that a deadbeat cardinal was milking, or rather, allowed to milk the Church for so much for so long. Hope this leads to a lot more deadbeat cardinals, regardless of ideology, losing unearned privileges. Like pigs at a trough, at my personal expense.

A retired pope is qualitatively different from a retired cardinal. In Pope Benedict's case, it was qualitatively different from anything from the past 700 years. The last retired pope got stuck in prison by his successor. Which, to be honest, was living in the lap of luxury compared to his prior existence, in a cave. (Bizarre story which has weirdly never been made into a film).

So no, it has nothing to do with Cardinal Burke's case. At all.

Cardinal Burke's justly earned retirement benefits have not been curtailed, only the salary and perks he was getting as if he were actually working, and living in Rome. That's what makes him a deadbeat.


Edited to correct: The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, but no successor was elected until he died. The pope I meant was, of course, Pope Celestine V.

As long as it were done across the boards, as you say, regardless of ideology, I would have nothing against such cost-cutting.

As I said in another post, to the extent humanly possibly, religion should be separated from money.  Everyone has to live; no one has to live luxuriously.  When Pope Francis drives a Ford compact car, eats at the Vatican cafeteria, and lives in quarters probably no more spacious than my own as a retired pensioner, he is a man after my own heart.

Not sure how Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer would react to that.

I don't see a thing whatsoever in this article implying that the Church should be an exemplar of ostentation and pampered living among its prelates.  If it's there, it's buried so deeply, and implied so obliquely, that I didn't catch it.

The bit about "earthly riches and worldly power are signs of divine favor, and, conversely that poverty is a well-deserved divine punishment" is something you'll never find in any catechism, and as you well note, it predates the Catholic Church (good to acknowledge that).  It is the hallmark of the heretical "prosperity gospel" doctrine taught by any number of Protestant evangelists.  It's antithetical to the lifestyles found in many European countries, such as in Scandinavia and the Netherlands (which, it's fair to note, are Protestant societies).  Live simply and don't throw your prosperity, if you have it, in other people's faces.

There is also, and this is just my own observation from over six decades of living, a personality type --- there must be some name for it --- that just enjoys spending money, seeks to "live large".  That's not my thing and never has been, I wasn't raised that way.  My dinner last night was a peanut butter sandwich on a hamburger bun with a Diet Coke.  That's all I wanted, that's all I needed.  As Jesus said, it all goes into the privy anyway.

Of all the things I could dislike about the Francis papacy, his austere lifestyle isn't one of them.  

He conveniently doesn't mention the enormous amount of corruption and nepotism.


Cesare had not been illegitimate since he was seven years old, when he was legitimized by decree of then Pope Sixtus IV, (who, coincidentally, was the uncle of Julius II, whom he created a cardinal at age 16). Cesare started on a career in the church shortly afterward, and was assigned a bishopric by his father when he was fifteen, and another when he was seventeen, and two more and an abbacy by the time he was eighteen, when his father made him a cardinal. (A family tradition, as Rodrigo himself had started his nepostistic church career when he was fourteen and had been made a cardinal by his uncle, Pope Callixtus III, when he was only 25. And not just a cardinal, but the highest ranking cardinal in the whole church).

Five years later, Cesare resigned from all church offices and was laicized in order to accept the title of duke from the king of France (one of the few people who have ever resigned from the office voluntarily).

During all this time, Cesare had never been actually ordained as priest or consecrated as bishop. The highest order he attained was deacon.

The next year, the king of France invaded Italy with Cesare as his side, and the Pope took advantage of the chaos to create a principality for his son in the Papal States, and naming him commander of the Papal armies.

The author of the article glosses over the fact that corruption and nepotism were a way of life for Popes and clerics of all stripes during the renaissance. It was their bread and butter, their pride and joy. Greed was good. Warfare was rampant. The family came first; everything else was a means to that end, including the Church and the Papacy itself. The popes the author glorifies were corrupt even by the standards of their day, even by just sticking to the facts without getting into the countless salacious rumors.

He states that they accomplished so much "all while trying to survive the tumult of Italian politics of that time", while not mentioning that they were major players in that tumult themselves, not innocent bystanders.

And he glosses over the fact that clerical corruption was a major factor in triggering the Protestant reformation.

Not that Alexander VI was all bad. He was remarkably religiously tolerant. When the Jews were expelled from his native Spain, he warmly welcomed them in Rome. He also had warm relations with the Porte, and even tried to enlist the Sultan as an ally against Charles II of France, who captured Rome with the aim of deposing Alexander, but then decided against it. The sultans brother was an involuntary guest of the Pope, i.e. hostage, but Alexander treated him with exceptional fondness as if he were one of his own kids. One of the conditions the Sultan set for the alliance was that the Pope kill his brother. Fortunately, the letter containing those instructions fell into the hands of Charles II, the brother was never killed, and the alliance did not come to fruition.

The history of the Papacy in the high renaissance makes Game of Thrones look like Peter Rabbit. It's certainly a lot more entertaining. As a matter of fact, that's where George Martin got a lot of his inspiration from. His book inspired one TV miniseries. Pope Alexander VI inspired THREE. And a film, The Conclave, although that was about his role in the conclave of 1458, when he was a young cardinal.