Cardinal Burke’s removal from the Apostolic Signatura has not put a damper on his outspoken concerns about the ideas being considered during the two-part Synod on Marriage and Family. In a conference in Ireland, he again called for a removal of certain issues from the second round of synod talks in October, 2015.
Cardinal Raymond Burke has urged Pope Francis to take the issues of Communion for the divorced and remarried, cohabitation and same-sex marriage “off the table” for next year’s Synod of Bishops.
Addressing more than 300 delegates at a family and marriage conference, organised by Catholic Voice, in Limerick on November 15, the American cardinal said these issues had distracted the work of the synod in its first session in October.
Warning that Satan was sowing confusion and error about matrimony, the cardinal patron of the Knights of Malta said, “Even within the church there are those who would obscure the truth of the indissolubility of marriage in the name of mercy.”
Again and again, the good cardinal puts his finger on the source of the problems plaguing human sexuality and the family, and his clear voice on how Catholics should view these issues is refreshing:
Cardinal Burke has urged Catholics to write to Pope Francis to let him know that they want Catholic teaching unequivocally re-affirmed. Here’s the address if you would like to do so:Lashing out at the “so-called contraceptive mentality,” he warned it was “anti-life” and blamed it for “the devastation that is daily wrought in our world by the multi-million dollar industry of pornography” and the “incredibly aggressive homosexual agenda,” which he claimed could only result in “the profound unhappiness and even despair of those affected by it.”
Cardinal Burke said he was reduced to tears by attempts to introduce “so-called gender theory” into schools.
He warned that such theory was “iniquitous” and that exposing children to such “corrupt thinking” could not be permitted.
He said “society has gone even further in its affront to God and his law by claiming the name of marriage for liaisons between persons of the same sex.”
To applause, the cardinal said he refused to use the term traditional marriage for the marriage of a man and a woman.
“My response is — is there any other kind of marriage? I fear that by using that terminology that we give the impression that we think that there are other kinds of marriage; well, we don’t.”
His Holiness Pope Francis
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City
How sad that we even need to consider writing to the Pope to ask him to do his job.
The Pope’s job is not to stifle discussion.
If the discussion is on a subject that is forever closed, it is. The world is asking us to contradict Christ. We cannot. Ever. Discussion of such, other than top-down teaching about the reality of the matter, can only lead souls to hell.
OK, then you tell us what you think the Pope’s job is
Pastor, bishop of Rome, and chief of the Holy See. Don’t we admire CEOs who are “change agents”? I often feel that many want the papacy to not even be occupied by a human person anymore, just a simple machine that says “no” to everything.
In a word Jenni: No.
No to viewing the Pope as our corporate point man in the latest business venture.
And no to viewing the Pope as a negation-machine.
Your affection for this Pope is in some part due to the fact that both you and he have a penchant for false dichotomies and Americanism.
If by Americanism you mean the 19th Century term for heresy that involved tolerating (or endorsing) separation of Church and State, and resisting blind deference to authority – yes I do have a penchant for Americanism. So does pretty much else around the world today; outside of a few backward Muslim countries nobody wants the Church involved with the State.
I don’t get what you mean by false dichotomies. I am for open discussion, and Francis, in a very minor way, is pushing in that direction.
That’s not what Americanism is. At its heart, it is a much broader notion that one must trim one’s own religious sails without regard to the past. As Leo XIII put it in his encyclical:
“The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more
easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them.
It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind. The Vatican Council says concerning this point: ‘For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human
ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.’ -Constitutio de Fide Catholica, Chapter iv.
We cannot consider as altogether blameless the silence which purposely leads to the omission or neglect of some of the principles of Christian doctrine, for all the principles come from the same Author and Master, “the Only Begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father.”-John i, I8. They are adapted to all times and all nations, as is clearly seen from the words of our Lord to His apostles:
“Going, therefore, teach all nations; teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world.”-Matt. xxviii, 19. Concerning this point the Vatican Council says: “All those things are to be believed with divine and catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal magisterium, proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed.”-Const. de fide, Chapter iii.
Let it be far from anyone’s mind to suppress for any reason any doctrine that has been handed down. Such a policy would tend rather to separate Catholics from the Church than to bring in those who differ. There is nothing closer to our heart than to have those who are separated from the fold of Christ return to it, but in no other way than the way pointed out by Christ.”
Most American Catholics suffer in varying degrees from Americanism, to be sure, but it’s not something to brag about.
So, you admit to being a *formal* heretic?
I’m not a historian and Dale Price said my definition of Americanism was wrong. It was another poster, Elliot Bougis, who said I had a penchant for Americanism. I don’t know where he got this from. Maybe he is fighting a battle in his mind against people he thinks have a penchant for Americanism and somehow extrapolated their views to me. But my (apparently wrong) definition of Americanism, I do think it the way to organize society, as pretty much everyone does today. I don’t know how Francis’s failure to remove a topic from discussion counts as Americanism, but I do not in general like removing items from potential discussion.
If one repeatedly proposes to drive off a cliff, then, yes, I want to hear someone saying “No” to that. Unceasingly. In a world that will be infected with original sin until the Parousia, there have to be boundaries and someone’s buzz will invariably be stomped. There are some things one does not negotiate or discuss.
The Pope’s primary job is to defend the Faith. This Pope isn’t doing his job.
Many saints have done the same. No man is perfect, save Our Lord, thus correction is sometimes necessary.
St. Catherine of Siena is our good example.
I just love him so much. He is right up there with Pope Benedict XVI in my book. God, please send us a hundred more like Cardinal Burke.
AMEN, Jude, AMEN!!!
Steve, can you provide a link to a story where Cardinal Burke has asked people to write to the Holy Father? I am interested in this.
Steve provided the link to this comment in the above article already. http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/11/18/cardinal-urges-pope-to-take-hot-button-issues-off-table-for-next-synod/
thx!
As for the comment that ‘The Pope’s job is not to stifle discussion.’, I ask, the discussion of what? Should the Church make allowances for active pedophiles? If we open the discussion to communion for those living in adulterous relationships, why not active pedophiles? Or will that be a few years after the pedophile lobby has gotten society to accept pedophilia. (You know it is just two people who love each other. [According to their argument, the same used by the homosexual groups.]) It is amazing to me that the Bishops are even discussing these issues.
Yes, we need to help people repent of living in Mortal sin, and once having repented, we need to help them remain out of the sinful lifestyle.
We need to remember that Jesus is one with God, the same God who didn’t spare Sodom and Gomorrah? As Catholics we should do our best to help people toward repentance, but Jesus warned that nobody knows the day or the hour when judgement will come, either at our death or the tribulation. But never did Jesus say we need to accept sin.