Cardinal Burke off COVID-19 ventilator and back in hospital room, family says

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke during the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, June 29, 2019. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Aug 21, 2021 / 10:04 am (CNA).

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke has been removed from a ventilator and will move from the ICU to a hospital room as he continues to battle COVID-19.

According to an Aug. 21 update on the cardinal’s health, Burke was able to speak by phone with his sister on Saturday morning and “expressed his deep gratitude for the many prayers offered on his behalf,” the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe reported.

The shrine, located in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has been providing information about the 73-year-old cardinal’s health after he was admitted to the hospital and put on a ventilator Aug. 14 due to complications from COVID-19.

Burke’s “family asks that we continue those prayers for his full and speedy recovery, and they are grateful to God for the exceptional medical care the Cardinal has received from the dedicated doctors and nurses who continue to assist him,” shrine director Fr. Paul N. Check wrote Aug. 21.

“The Shrine and the Cardinal’s media will provide further updates as directed by his family,” he said.

Burke had previously announced his diagnosis of COVID-19 on Aug. 10. A week later, the Shrine reported that the cardinal was in “serious but stable condition” and that the next few days would be critical. The shrine asked for continued prayers for Cardinal Burke and his family, especially through praying the rosary and attending Mass.

Prayers for the cardinal’s recovery have poured in throughout his illness.

“I’m praying for Cardinal Burke’s healing. And for an increase in humility all around,” wrote National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. “And also, a respect for conscience rights at this time of great fear. Fear does not bring out the best in us, it would seem.”

Lopez was critical of media reports which stressed Cardinal Burke’s orthodox Catholic faith, as well as his opposition to vaccination mandates. It is not known if Cardinal Burke was vaccinated against COVID-19, but he has been a vocal opponent of closing churches, as well as mandatory vaccines.

The Latin Mass Society created a “spiritual bouquet” where people could submit prayers or other devotional acts done with the intention of Cardinal Burke’s recovery.


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8 Comments

  1. Wonderful comeback by Cardinal Burke beating the odds with faith and spiritual courage. Even if the Dubia failed its purpose we need Cardinals Burke and Brandmüller as silent witnesses to a great injustice against the Church.

  2. The Cardinal is a prominent vaccine sceptic. I pray not only for the Cardinal for his quick recovery from COVID but also and above all for the rightist conservative media propagandists that they turn away from and repent of their death dealing (ironically promoting “my body, my choice” pro-choice and anti-life ideology) work in the disinformation and misinformation about the vaccine they have infected upon people like the Cardinal and a lot of Catholics as well.

    • All three of the vaccines available in the United States used cells derived from tissue taken from murdered babies in the development/testing phase. One of them also uses such cells in the production. That is not disinformation nor misinformation.

    • Leila:

      The vaccines for Covid are justifiably declined by people of good will, for a range of reasons, both scientific and religious.

      While I have been vaccinated myself, after long deliberation, finally making the choice not based on any available “science” (because we all should acknowledge the stark reality that none of the vaccines are or can be approved, they have merely been authorized, because the proper and required testing has not and cannot be done), but because my college-going children were forced to be vaccinated by their Catholic universities, and I decided that whatever risks they were forced to take, I wanted to assume with them as well, while hoping that the choice turned out for the best for all of us.

      It has been appalling to behold the suffocation of open public and scientific discourse by the self-aggrandizing cultists propping up the brothers Frankenstein, Anthony Fauci and Mario Cuomo, a pair of lunatics who worked over-time “managing” their PR by confecting “Emmy Awards” and publicly fantasizing about DiNiro and Pacino portraying their “heroics” in the movies, while confecting public policies that killed elderly people in New York at 2.5-TIMES the average rate.

      The whole “vaccine-policy-debate” is woefully short of what ought to be expected of both serious scientists and serious Bishops.

  3. His Eminence, Cardinal Burke, Health Update
    August 21, 2021

    Praised be Jesus Christ!

    The Cardinal’s family is pleased to announce that His Eminence has come off the ventilator and will leave the ICU today to return to his hospital room. His sister spoke with him on the phone this morning, and His Eminence expressed his deep gratitude for the many prayers offered on his behalf. His family asks that we continue those prayers for his full and speedy recovery, and they are grateful to God for the exceptional medical care the Cardinal has received from the dedicated doctors and nurses who continue to assist him.

    The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Cardinal’s media will provide further updates as directed by his family.

    God bless you.
    Rev. Paul N. Check
    Executive Director
    Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

  4. I had prayed the rosary for his healing and was so happy to hear he was getting better and out of ICU this afternoon that I promptly offered my communion this evening in thanksgiving. What a mighty savior we have in Christ Jesus.

  5. I join Dianne McHenry and others in rejoicing, and like so many I prayed the rosary (the Joyful Mysteries) in hope that Cardinal Burke’s life would be spared, and I thank God for the gift of his recovery.

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