New interview with Card. Burke

A new interview with His Eminence Raymond Card. Burke with LifesiteNews. Read it all there, but here is some:

Exclusive interview: Cardinal Burke says confusion spreading among Catholics ‘in an alarming way’ (full text)

Editor’s Note: Cardinal Raymond Burke spoke with LifeSiteNews Paris correspondent Jeanne Smits in Rome on January 21. We are running the interview along with an article (available here) drawing out some of the cardinal’s most significant points. Smits has also published a French version of the interview on her blog.

LifeSiteNews: Since the extraordinary synod on the family, we have entered a period of uncertainty and confusion over several “hot-button” issues: communion for divorced and “remarried” couples, a change of attitude towards homosexual unions and an apparent relaxing of attitudes towards non-married couples. Does your Eminence think that this confusion is already producing adverse effects among Catholics?

Cardinal Burke: Most certainly, it is. I hear it myself: I hear it from Catholics, I hear it from bishops. People are claiming now, for instance, that the Church has changed her teaching with regard to sexual relations outside of marriage, with regard to the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts. Or people who are within irregular matrimonial unions are demanding to receive Holy Communion, claiming that this is the will of the Holy Father. And we have astounding situations, like the declarations of the bishop of Antwerp with regard to homosexual acts, which go undisciplined, and so we can see that this confusion is spreading, really, in an alarming way.

LSN: Archbishop Bonny says Humanae vitae was disputed by many: now is the time to dispute other things. Aren’t we in a period when the Church’s teachings are being disputed more than before?

CB: Yes, I believe so. It seems now that people who before did not dispute the Church’s teaching, because it was clear that the authority of the Church prohibited certain discussions, now feel very free to dispute even the natural moral law, including a teaching like Humanae vitae which has been the constant teaching of the Church with regard to the question of contraception.

LSN: It was said after the publication of the relatio post disceptationem that there was a manipulation that consisted in putting into the synod questions that actually have nothing to do with the family. Would you accept to express yourself on how and why this “manipulation” took place? Who is benefiting?

CB: It’s clear that there was a manipulation because the actual interventions of the members of the synod were not published, and only the mid-term report, or the “relatio post disceptationem”, was given, which had really nothing to do with what was being presented in the synod. And so it’s clear to me that there were individuals who obviously had a very strong influence on the synod process who were pushing an agenda which has nothing to do with the truth about marriage as Our Lord Himself teaches it to us, as it is handed down to us in the Church. That agenda had to do with trying to justify extra-marital sexual relations and sexual acts between persons of the same sex and, in a way, clearly to relativize and even to obscure the beauty of the Church’s teaching on marriage as a faithful, indissoluble, procreative union of one man and one woman.

LSN: Who is this benefiting? As faithful Catholics, we are surprised and worried about the sudden apparition of these themes.

CB: Well, it can’t be a benefit to anyone, because it’s not true: it’s not the truth. And so it’s only doing harm to everyone. It may be perceived as a benefit, for instance, to people who for whatever reason are caught up in immoral situations. It may be seen by some as in some way to justify them. But it can’t justify them, because the acts themselves are not able to be justified.

[… SKIPPING A LOT…]

LSN: How can the Church really help all those concerned: abandoned spouses, children of legitimate marriages who are hurt by the divorce of their parents, people who are struggling with homosexual tendencies or who have in a way let themselves be “trapped” into an illegitimate union? And what should our attitude be: the attitude of the faithful?

CB: What the Church can do, and that is the greatest act of love on the part of the Church, is to present the teaching on marriage, the teaching that comes from Christ’s very words, the teaching which has been constant in the tradition, to everyone, as a sign of hope for them. And also, to help them to recognize the sinfulness of the situation in which they find themselves, and at the same time  call them to leave that sinful situation and to find a way to live in accord with the truth. And that’s the only way the Church can help. That was my great hope for the synod: that the synod would hold up to the world the great beauty of marriage, and that beauty is the truth about marriage. I always say to people: indissolubility is not a curse, it is the great beauty of the marital relationship. This is what gives beauty to the relationship between a man and a woman, that the union is indissoluble, that it is faithful, that it is procreative. But now one almost begins to get the impression that somehow the Church is ashamed of the very beautiful treasure which we have in marriage, as God made man and woman from the beginning.

[…]

There is quite a bit more.

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4 Comments

  1. SimonDodd says:

    That’s crazy talk. Doesn’t his eminence know that Francis hasn’t formally changed any formal teaching of the Church? That’s what “they” are always telling us: Stop fretting, they say; “he hasn’t changed any teaching”, they say. (And they repeat.) How then could people be confused? That makes no sense to me.

    Unless… of course… And I only mention this for the sake of completeness…

    … Popes can do damaging, wounding things other than formally changing formal teaching of the Church. I know that it sounds crazy. (And sssssssssssshhhhhhhhhh, no one tell EWTN.) …

    … But how else can we make sense of it if “confusion” is spreading even though the pope hasn’t formally changed any formal teaching?

  2. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Thank you for quoting and linking! “You cannot divide the truth from love” seems an especially apt candidate for winged word!

    (“Beauty is the truth about marriage” seems, perhaps, another, but I am not sure of the third ‘that’ in the full sentence: “That was my great hope for the synod: that the synod would hold up to the world the great beauty of marriage, and that beauty is the truth about marriage.” Is this ‘That was my great hope for the synod: that the synod would hold up to the world (1) the great beauty of marriage, and (2) that beauty is the truth about marriage’? or ‘That was my great hope for the synod: that the synod would hold up to the world the great beauty of marriage, and would hold up that that great beauty is the truth about marriage’?)

    Very interesting was: “Ideally, they [Catholics] should try to build up a political force in society which stands fully for the truth, for the non-negotiable goods with regard to human life and the family. And they should make their own position very clear, and insist on it, with the political parties that are in existence, in order to be a force for the reform of those political parties. Clearly you cannot take part in any kind of movement which would be contrary to the moral law.” (Is this what Jacques Maritain argues in Scholasticism and Politics? – a book I have not yet read, but have seen well spoken of.)

    While in “would not the vulgarization of this work offer real answers to today’s problems?”, “vulgarization” is an unfortunate Frenchism, I do not know if it’s likely to be very distracting or misleading (though LSN might do well to gloss it parenthetically).

  3. gramma10 says:

    The synod ought to helping the abandoned single moms. There are many out there due to porn. They ought to be allowing the kids entrance into Catholic schools and stop predicting doom and gloom because they are fatherless. Many were in the Catholic schools but now have no $$ to continue. Families need help. This Synod had gone on a tangent trying to make a point with an agenda of it’s own.
    This discussion with the bishops and the controversy is taking away from other urgentife issues. This arguing is getting far too much attention I think.
    Such pride and childishness.
    I pray that we start really praying and look within to help the families and children being harmed by this.
    Where is Jesus in all of this? I think He is appalled.

  4. Gratias says:

    Thank You Cardinal Burke for your sevice to the Catholic Church.

    In the long version of the interview I was impressed by the part in which Evil hates a loving marriage. So many times we find inexplicable obstacles coming our way for apparently no reason. The modern world will try to trip us every time because of the example a happy home irradiates.

    Pope Francis’ Synod is really about unmarried couples and same sex marriage. He wants the church to become hip to things. Synods pass but one Catholic Church stays on. We have to keep it going on our watch.

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