"Ray of Clarity"... Ray-nd In?

Fresh off his barnburner speech in DC on Friday, Archbishop Raymond Burke gave an interview to National Review Online in which he was asked whether local bishops "have to do something" in regard to Catholic politicians who defy church teaching in supporting legalized abortion.

Yet just six weeks after last taking the query, this time the answer was notably different:

Apart from specified areas of competence that are mine as prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, it is not my place to declare what a diocesan bishop should or should not be doing in a particular situation. My purpose in speaking at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast did not include addressing the matter addressed in your question.

More "vintage Burke," however, is the top jurist's response regarding the state of a voter's soul:

If a Catholic knowingly and deliberately votes for a person who is in favor of the most grievous violations of the natural moral law, then he has formally cooperated in a grave evil and must confess his serious sin. Since President Obama clearly announced, during the election campaign, his anti-life and anti-family agenda, a Catholic who knew his agenda regarding, for example, procured abortion, embryonic-stem-cell research, and same-sex marriage, could not have voted for him with a clear conscience.

And so it goes.

PHOTO: AP

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