A cardinal who was recently demoted by Pope Francis said over the weekend that he would deny Holy Communion to Catholic legislators who voted for legislation allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.

Last week, Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis, was removed as the head of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest court, and given the largely ceremonial post of Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Speaking to RTE News ahead of a conference on the Catholic Family in Limerick, Ireland, Burke declined to comment on an upcoming public vote which seeks to make Ireland the 18th nation with marriage equality.

(Related: Colin Farrell makes personal appeal to Irish people on gay marriage proposal.)

“[O]f course, there would be a question about receiving Holy Communion [if a legislator supported marriage equality],” Burke said.

“You would not...” the interviewer started.

“No,” Burke answered.

Pope Francis acted shortly after Burke led a successful campaign to strike out language welcoming gays to the Catholic faith in a draft document about the family.

(Related: Pope Francis after bishops drop welcome to gays: God's not afraid of new things.)

Burke is an outspoken opponent of gay rights who made headlines recently when he called gay relationships “evil” and harmful to children.

“If homosexual relations are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are – reason teaches us that and also our faith – then, what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living [in] a disordered relationship with another person?” Burke asked.

“We wouldn't,” he answered. “If it were another kind of relationship – something that was profoundly disordered and harmful – we wouldn't expose our children to that relationship, to the direct experience of it. And neither should we do it in the context of a family member who not only suffers from same-sex attraction, but who has chosen to live out that attraction, to act upon it, committing acts which are always and everywhere wrong, evil.”