Duck Dynasty Star Removed From Congregation For Bishops Just Days After Burke

VATICAN–Just days after Pope Francis removed former La Crosse bishop Cardinal Raymond Burke from his seat on the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops,  Francis today removed Phil Robertson, one of the stars of the A&E reality show Duck Dynasty and founder of Duck Commander, meaning the conservative patriarch of the “Robertson Clan” will lose his influential role in appointing bishops in the United States. Burke’s removal came soon after he said that Pope Francis’ comments suggesting that church teaching on matters such as abortion and gay marriage didn’t need to be repeated were, “not altogether easy to interpret” and went on to say that, “we can never talk enough about the defense of human life.” Many analysts are now suggesting that the Robertson’s removal was due in part to similar comments he recently made to GQ magazine criticizing homosexuality. Among the many of the explicit comments made, Robertson told GQ that “Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong… sin becomes fine. Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.  It’s not right.” The pope on Monday appointed Washington, D.C., Cardinal Donald Wuerl to the 18-member board to replace Burke and Robertson. Robertson, who was the consultant to the Congregation for Bishops, and seen by many in the Church as a conservative ally of Burke, will head back home to Louisiana. A spokesman for Robertson told EOTT that Robertson was sad to leave, and felt that both he and Burke were unfairly targeted for “preaching about the objective truths in the bible.” He went on to say that “In them cases where homo sex unions have been legally recognized or dun been given legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear ‘n emphatic opposition is a duty. We all gotta refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from cooperation on the level of their application and things like that. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”