Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, 73, a vocal skeptic of COVID-19 vaccines was placed on a ventilator days after he tested positive for the virus, according to a tweet from his account .
“Cardinal Burke has been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 and is being assisted by a ventilator. Doctors are encouraged by his progress. (His Eminence) faithfully prayed the Rosary for those suffering from the virus. On this Vigil of the Assumption, let us now pray the Rosary for him,” the tweet said.
Burke announced he had tested positive for the virus on Wednesday.
He was Archbishop of St. Louis from 2003 to 2008 before he went to the Vatican to become a member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, according to the St. Louis Post–Dispatch. He resigned from the post in 2014 and currently serves as Cardinal Priest of Sant’Agata de’ Goti in Rome, where he resides.
Burke can often be seen walking in Rome, with his rosary in hand, maskless.
He became ill while visiting Wisconsin, where he grew up and founded a church in 2008, according to Elizabeth Westhoff, a friend and his former press secretary.
It is unclear whether Burke was vaccinated, but he has spoken out against vaccines and vaccine mandates.
According to Religion News Service, in a May 2020 Rome Life Forum he said “vaccination itself cannot be imposed, in a totalitarian manner, on citizens.” He also mentioned that some groups suggest “a kind of microchip needs to be placed under the skin of every person, so that at any moment he or she can be controlled by the State regarding health and about other matters which we can only imagine.”
In the same speech, Burke blasted the vaccines saying, “it must be clear that it is never morally justified to develop a vaccine through the use of the cell lines of aborted fetuses,” adding that the state “is not the ultimate provider of health. God is. Whatever the State proposes must respect God and His Law.”
Burke also referred to coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus” in a December homily and said, “It has been used by certain forces inimical to families and to the freedom of nations, to advance their evil agenda.”
