The St. Louis Dispatch has word today of a contest between Rick Majerus, basketball coach of St. Louis University, a nominally Catholic school, and Archbishop Raymond Burke.
Apparently, Majerus (best known for former stints coaching Utah U. and commenting on ESPN) showed up at a Hillary Clinton rally and said that he was pro-choice. He’s also said that he is “very much an advocate for stem cell research.”
This did not endear him to Burke, who said that: “When you take a position in a Catholic university, you don’t have to embrace everything the Catholic church teaches. But you can’t make statements which call into question that identity and mission of the Catholic church.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time Burke has been displeased with public pro-choiceness in his archdiocese.
As the article states: In 2004, Burke said he would deny holy Communion to Sen. John Kerry, then the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee who supported abortion rights. Last fall, the archbishop said he would deny Communion to Rudy Giuliani, a 2008 Republican presidential candidate and abortion rights supporter.
Last April, Burke resigned from the foundation board at the Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center after the rest of the foundation’s board refused to replace Sheryl Crow as the musical headliner benefiting the hospital’s Bob Costas Cancer Center. Crow is a supporter of embryonic stem cell research, which the Catholic church considers akin to abortion.
Read more here.
