Tosatti: Vatican has “verbally advised” US bishops to “not invite” Cardinal Burke into their dioceses

The auxiliary bishop of Astana, formerly bishop of Karaganda [Kazakhstan], Athanasius Schneider, has received a verbal injunction from the Vatican asking him to reduce the frequency of his foreign trips.

This measure was taken last spring; the bishop was informed in April by the Nuncio in Kazakhstan, Francis Assisi Chullikatt, of this extraordinary restriction on his freedom.

Yet another unique aspect of this affair is that Archbishop Schneider only received a verbal notice of this restriction, which was given directly to him by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The Nuncio did not give him anything in writing, no document which could serve as the basis for the bishop taking any sort of legal initiative [to appeal the matter] to the Congregation for Bishops or the Apostolic Signatura which, until the advent of Pope Bergoglio, was the court of instance where lay people, priests, and bishops could make appeal against decisions of ecclesiastical authority which they believed to be unjust.

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