Burke on Baucus: "Not Acceptable"

Introduced as "the highest judicial authority in the Catholic church," earlier today the latest Senate proposal on health-care reform was addressed on FOX News by the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Archbishop Raymond Burke.

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Burke's intervention on the issue is the second this week to come from a senior Vatican official, following Justice Czar Cardinal Renato Martino's laudatory comments on universal coverage in a Tuesday interview with Catholic News Service.

That said, as head of a Roman dicastery, the former St Louis prelate is no longer a member of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

SVILUPPO: During the same Washington trip that saw the above interview, the pre-eminent canonist -- a cardinal-in-waiting due to his Vatican post -- waded into the US church's other signal controversy of the moment, stating that Catholic politicians who support abortion and/or same-sex marriage should be given "neither Holy Communion nor [ecclesiastical] funeral rites.

"It is not possible to be a practicing Catholic and to conduct oneself in this manner," Burke said at a testimonial dinner in his honor. "To deny these is not a judgment of the soul, but a recognition of the scandal and its effects."

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