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Cardinal Burke: "Perfect Emblem of Post- Vatican II 'traditionalism'" - Stone - 08-21-2025
The following is an excerpt of a substack article from Hiraeth in Exile, recalling Cardinal Burke's past comments and actions regarding a 'trans' nun who started a congregation, with the Cardinal's blessing. Quite a few 'conservative' Catholics think Cardinal Burke is traditional. But in performing more than a cursory, superficial look, that tendency does not run very deep. He still praises and holds on to Vatican II. Let us hope and pray that he is lead to a full conversion to immutable Tradition of the Church.
Burke’s Trans Nun Amnesia: How a Cardinal Who Approved a Male “Sister” Now Hosts a Conference Warning About Them
Chris Jackson via Hiraeth in Exile [adapted and reformatted] | Aug 14, 2025
At Cardinal Raymond Burke’s annual Speculum iustitiae canon law conference, a Vatican official sounded the alarm that some transsexuals may have been ordained, their surgeries only discovered after ordination. His tone was one of horror: the sort of ecclesial scandal a faithful shepherd should surely have fought to prevent.
Yet the irony is breathtaking: in the 1990s, Burke himself approved and elevated a women’s religious congregation co-founded by “Sister Julie” Green, born Joel Green, a man who had undergone sex-change surgery. When concerns were raised, Burke defended the founder, insisting “she” did not promote the morality of the surgery, and warning critics against “rash judgments.” Rome only acted after the matter went public.1234
Now, the same Burke presides over a conference where the very scenario he once enabled is treated as a symptom of the Church’s collapse. It’s the perfect emblem of post-Vatican II “traditionalism”: speak thunderously against sin from the lectern, but turn pastoral discretion into doctrinal surrender when the decision is yours to make.
Burke’s Trans Nun Legacy
In 1997, then-Bishop Burke elevated the Franciscan Servants of Jesus, a women’s order co-founded by “Sister Julie” Green, who had undergone sex-change surgery years earlier. The facts were not hidden, complaints were made, letters were sent to the papal nuncio, and Vatican consultations were acknowledged.
Burke’s written defense admitted the co-founder’s biological sex and the moral disorder of the surgery, yet still justified allowing “her” to found and participate in the order. Canon law expertise didn’t prevent the bishop from treating the case as a pastoral oddity rather than a clear impossibility.
Fast forward to 2025: his own conference warns about priests who turn out to be female-to-male transsexuals.
The hypocrisy is a straight line from Burke’s permissiveness to the “horrors” now decried under his banner.