Fr. Z's Blog

At Emangelization there is a long interview with His Eminence Raymond Leo (which means “Lion”) Card. Burke.  His Eminence is not going quietly into the good night, as I am sure his enemies had wanted… since they couldn’t get more.  But I digress.

The interview is arranged around the theme of the state of men in the Church today.

This part is going to make some on the catholic Left have spittle-flecked nutty!

[…]

Sadly, the Church has not effectively reacted to these destructive cultural forces; [He has just listed a few.] instead the Church has become too influenced by radical feminism and has largely ignored the serious needs of men.

My generation has taken for granted the many blessings we were blessed with in our solid family lives and with the Church’s solid formation of us. My generation let all of this nonsense of sexual confusion, radical feminism and the breakdown of the family go on, not realizing that we were robbing the next generations of the most treasured gifts that we had been blessed to receive.

We have gravely wounded the current generations. As a bishop, young people complained bitterly to me, “Why we were not taught these things. Why we were not more clearly taught about the Mass, Confession and traditional devotions?” These things matter for they form a spiritual life and a man’s character.

Going to Confession and to Sunday Mass, praying the Rosary together as a family in the evening, eating meals together, all these things give practical direction in the Christian life. Learning that it is not manly to be vulgar or blasphemous and that a man is welcoming and courteous to others; these might seem like little things but they form a man’s character. Much of this has been lost.

Matthew:   Your Eminence, what has been the impact of this Catholic “man-crisis” on the Church?

Cardinal Burke:  [NB!] The Church becomes very feminized. [Here that repeated ‘popping’ sound?  Those are arteries bursting in the necks and heads of the Left.  Watch for swift retaliation in the liberal press.] Women are wonderful, of course. They respond very naturally to the invitation to be active in the Church. Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women. The activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and have become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved.

Men are often reluctant to become active in the Church. The feminized environment and the lack of the Church’s effort to engage men has led many men to simply opt out. [See my polls on the effect of all male service in the sanctuary on vocations.]

As an example, it became politically incorrect to talk about the Knights of the Altar, an idea that is highly appealing to young men. The Knights of the Altar emphasize the idea that young men offer their chivalrous service at the altar to defend Christ in the sacred realities of the Church. This idea is not welcome in many places today. [Guess who drives this sort of thing away?]

Aspects of the Church’s life that emphasized the man?like character of devotion and sacrifice have been deemphasized. Devotions that required time and effort were simply abandoned. Everything became so easy and when things are easy, men don’t think it is worth the effort. [Ain’t it the truth?]

There has been, and continues to be, serious liturgical abuses that turn men off.

In many places the Mass became very priest?centered, it was like the “priest show”. [Not in the TLM, however.  The priest is completely controlled and made subservient to the action and the true Actor.] This type of abuse leads to a loss of the sense of the sacred, taking the essential mystery out of the Mass. The reality of Christ Himself coming down on the altar to make present His sacrifice on Cavalry gets lost. Men are drawn to the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice but tune out when the Mass becomes a “priest show” or trite.

The rampant liturgical experimentation after Vatican II, much of which was not sanctioned by Vatican II, stripped the Rite of the Mass of much of its careful articulation of the Sacred Mysteries that had been developed over centuries. The Mass seemed to become something very familiar, performed by men; the profound supernatural sense of the Sacred Mystery became obscured.

The loss of the sacred led to a loss of participation of women and men. But I think that men were really turned off by the loss of the sacred. It seems clear that many men are not being drawn into a deeper liturgical spirituality; today, many men are not being drawn to service at the altar.  [Remember Card. Heenan’s remarks?   HERE]

Young men and men respond to rigor and precision and excellence. When I was trained to be a server, the training lasted for several weeks and you had to memorize the prayers at the foot of the altar. It was a rigorous and a carefully executed service. All of a sudden, in the wake of Vatican II, the celebration of the liturgy became very sloppy in many places. It became less attractive to young men, for it was slipshod. [Put the shapeless, characterless white sack on, tie it with a dopey rope cord thing, stand there while the talking and the commercial jingle-like music go on and on and on, carry a cruet over….]

The introduction of girl servers also led many boys to abandon altar service. Young boys don’t want to do things with girls. It’s just natural. The girls were also very good at altar service. So many boys drifted away over time. I want to emphasize that the practice of having exclusively boys as altar servers has nothing to do with inequality of women in the Church.

I think that this has contributed to a loss of priestly vocations. It requires a certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys. If we are not training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that vocations have fallen dramatically.

[…]

Yes, the Left will now have to issue their own hit pieces again Card. Burke, again.  They will be ad hominem, since they don’t usually deal with substance.  They don’t have to.  They suffer from BDS… BURKE DERANGEMENT SYNDROME™!

UPDATE:

I said that retaliation would start.  It has.   Here is an example.

RNS, not friendly to faithful Catholicism, posted a story on the interview.  Here is a screen shot, including the picture they posted with the story.

In the piece Gibson goes after Burke and disputes some points, but at least uses a little reason.   Fine.

Now… look at what catholic Crux does.  Another screenshot.  They simply repost David Gibson’s piece from RNS but the repackaged it a little for effect.

Here’s the larger photo chosen by Crux, not RNS.

See what they are trying to do?

CRUX: “Burke says the Church has become effeminate, but… tee hee… look!  He’s wearing lace!  See?  SEE?!?  And so are those other guys!  Who’s effeminate?  Tee hee!”

Never mind that people who make insinuations like this a) know nothing of Burke, b) are the same types who go weak-kneed watching people jump around in tights in the aisles of churches, and c) don’t get that the Franciscan Friars in this picture are tougher than nails, they live like mendicants, and don’t even wear shoes in the winter.  The FFI’s would only hang out with the Crux types out of pity and charity and as an act of their outreach and apostolate, but they respect and admire Card. Burke…because they’re men.

What is slimy about what Crux did here – as they show more and more their true colors – is that they did exactly what they would howl against were the tables turned.  Were a faithful Catholic comment on someone’s clothing and then suggest something about their sexuality, they’d have a cow.  Indeed, a series of cows.  A small herd, all mooing.

Finally, avoid the combox at Crux if you have to go over there.  It is as vile a sewer of anonymity-driven toxic waste as what you find at Fishwrap.  Instead, say a prayer for them, perhaps using the Memorare, asking our Blessed Mother’s help to turn some of these folks around before they die with the sins of their hate-filled calumnious and slanderous remarks rotting their souls as they go to the inescapable Judge.  May God have mercy on them.

I’m turning the moderation queue on here after seeing what they are doing in that fever swamp over there.  There may not be many comments visible for a while, since it is time to sleep here.