Cardinal Burke Responds to Recent Criticisms

[Gwendolyn]

In an Italian-language interview, the patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta said, ‘I am not against the Pope; I have never spoken out against the Pope. … My purpose is to serve the truth.’

Cardinal Burke Responds to Recent Criticisms | Daily News | NCRegister.com

One thing I strive to do is to understand both sides of an issue. I do it even with figures I find confusing, like Cardinal Kasper. I think this interview gives some more insight into Cardinal Burke. I learned a few things about him. I did not, for example, know that he often celebrates the TLM (which helps me understand why some circles of Catholics don't like him).

Anyway, wondering if any of you have some thoughts.

 

[pdudgeon]

an excellent interview!

I especially liked the last bit on how Cardinal Burke differentiated between truth and license which masquerades as love.
Now that last would be a good example of the 'smoke of satan' (license which masquerades as love).

The whole interview reminds me very much of Jesus when he preached "You have heard it said...but I tell you..."

 

[Fantine]

I am not quite sure why he continually seeks the media limelight and interjects himself into areas and continents over which he has no responsibility.

But I suppose this article is OK (not that I've read it) because he is seeking to defend himself, which is an acceptable reason to seek out the media, and much better than his continual media-assisted attacks.

 

[Irenaeus]

I am not quite sure why he continually seeks the media limelight and interjects himself into areas and continents over which he has no responsibility.

The same may be rightly said of Kasper as well. Before the Synod began, at the Consistory of February 2014, Kasper addressed the Cardinals and received a rapturous response from the Pope, although the assembled Cardinals were more muted in their reaction. Ever since, Kasper has had multi-continental speaking engagements, and has published his ideas (or fought his critics) in magazines.

Burke, after being relieved from his duties at the Apostolic Signatura, now is patron of a charitable order that can fly him and his cappa magna first class anywhere in the world. Despite what we all may think of his dress, by all accounts he seems to be a genuinely humble man - in every interview I've ever read of his, he seems self-effacing, humble and reasonable. He never even attacks those who disagree with him.

By way of contrast, it is a matter of public record that Kasper calumniated a journalist and endangered his professional career by alleging that he had fabricated an interview and certain things he said (until said journalist produced the tape recordings). There is also the matter of his complete dismissal of African Catholics. Even in his response to the Boston Priest Fr. Daniel P. Moloney's treatment of his book on mercy, Kasper seemed cagey and condescending. On that day in October, Kasper's Star fell, and may never arise again.

I suppose I would say in closing that all these aforementioned examples are matters of public record, from which I encourage anyone to draw their own conclusions.

 

[Fish and Bread]

I don't consider his eminence very relevant anymore. He was thankfully removed from all positions of authority by Pope Francis. All he has really retained is his red hat and a ceromonial position that is usually not someone's main job. After Burke threatened anyone who votes for a pro choice politician even for proportionate reasons with hell, I do not feel sorry for Burke in the slightest. He was practically part of the Republican Party's political apparatus, threaten opposition voters with eternal torment division. Voting for Democrats for the right reasons is not a sin. Now what *Burke* did, that I feel is a sin.

There is no confusion in my mind about why Pope Francis removed him from positions of importance. Francis wants a curia who's focus is on religion and the poor, not on a right-wing political agenda. The rest of the episcopate heard that message loud and clear, believe me. It was softpedaled some to spare Burke embarrassment, but people in the know know what's up.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

One thing of concern I've had for years about Catholicism is how political it is. Just look at this forum. A Catholic should be independent and be able to see the awful things in both parties, and hopefully realize that both parties are beholdant to lobbyists, $$$, corruption, and power. OBOB has hardcore liberals like I've never seen before, and majorly conservative Tea Party types. You guys fight over politics and it seems like you both do the same thing in the end---look for cardinals, bishops, and Catholic personalities that endorse your political views. Liberals consider Burke an anti-Christ awful figure and you say here he was practically a GOP party official. I could say the same of tons of pro-women's ordination, pro-LGBT marriage, pro-contraception, hardcore liberal priests and bishops who seem to do the exact same thing as Burke only toward the Left. But I would speculate that would be ok with liberals in here.

Why do we put SO MUCH faith in politicians and parties. That is how the Red October revolution happened. They thought communism was a type of savior. Same with Hitler's National Socialism, same with Reaganites who worship vulture capitalism as salvific, on and on. Governments come and go, political philosophies come and go. Christ is above and beyond all that stuff.

At the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism we pray "Put NOT your trust in princes in sons of men, in whom there is NO salvation...."

I think it's good advice from our Father Among the Saints. Why do we cherish these folks so much, and can't we see the bigger picture? Burke's far Right stuff may not be healthy, but is the far Left any better?

I don't consider his eminence very relevant anymore. He was thankfully removed from all positions of authority by Pope Francis. All he has really retained is his red hat and a ceromonial position that is usually not someone's main job. After Burke threatened anyone who votes for a pro choice politician even for proportionate reasons with hell, I do not feel sorry for Burke in the slightest. He was practically part of the Republican Party's political apparatus, threaten opposition voters with eternal torment division. Voting for Democrats for the right reasons is not a sin. Now what *Burke* did, that I feel is a sin.

There is no confusion in my mind about why Pope Francis removed him from positions of importance. Francis wants curia who's focus is on religion and the poor, not on a right-wing political agenda. The rest of the episcopate heard that message loud and clear, believe me. It was softpedaled some to spare Burke embarrassment, but people in the know know what's up.

 

[Gwendolyn]

You're right, Gurney. It's EXHAUSTING for me. Even though Canadian Catholics don't believe that there is one party that represents Catholic values - there isn't, all of them support abortion, for example - we still push back on issues like sex ed curriculum and people constantly still lobby against abortion and gay marriage (which has been legal in Canada for 10 years).

I don't want church leaders who are politicians, or who try to insert themselves into politics. I am most affected by church leaders who focus on humility and helping the poor and marginalised.

...Although, I have to say that I was really impressed when Cardinal Collins had a private meeting with Justin Trudeau (leader of one Canadian political party) to counsel him against receiving the Eucharist while he (Trudeau) held such a strong stance on abortion (pro-abort). I didn't see that coming. Cardinal Collins didn't take it to the media, he didn't make statements in newspapers or magazines. He spoke with Justin himself and counselled him man-to-man (priest to layman). Trudeau calls himself Catholic and makes a show of attending Mass while he bans any pro-life politicians from his federal party. So it's an issue.

ANYWAY

MY POINT IS

Catholicism in America seems so dang political and it's just weird. Rallies, fundraisers, political backing... I honestly don't think that is who the Church should be.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Liberals consider Burke an anti-Christ awful figure and you say here he was practically a GOP party official. I could say the same of tons of pro-women's ordination, pro-LGBT marriage, pro-contraception, hardcore liberal priests and bishops who seem to do the exact same thing as Burke only toward the Left.

Find me one bishop or Cardinal in good standing who issued a pastoral letter telling people voting for Republicans under any circumstances is a mortal sin that would send unrepentant people to hell, got rebuked for it by the Pope, and then decided he'd record himself saying it and have EWTN or some other network air it in a loop in the weekend before the election. Because that is what Cardinal Burke did, except with Democrats instead of Republicans (If you want to take party labels off of it, we could say a bishop who has said that people can not vote for politicians who favor capital punishment, unjust war, not recognizing the right of the elderly and the disabled to be looked after and the right of humans beings to health care [as mentioned in John XXIII's Papal encyclical, Pacem En Terris], etc.). And it's just one example- Burke has gotten himself very ingrained in politics over the years to the point where the fairly conservative Pope Benedict, took him out of the United States and sort of pushed him upstairs in a hope to get him to focus on Church stuff. It was a promotion, but it was also an attempt to get him off of what he was doing. He didn't take the hint and kept coming over here to speak at political fundraisers and say outrageous things, so Pope Francis wound up stripping that position from him and leaving him in a role with so little power that it hasn't been someone's primary job in the church in a very long time (Rather a secondary or tertiary thing carried in addition to one's main responsibilities).

There were bishops in Kansas that tried something similar one election cycle to what Burke did. One bishop decided he'd compare a Democratic politician to Hitler. Outrageous. I don't know what happened to them, but it was not befitting the holiness of their offices, and no immediate action was taken.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Weakland had a suffragan bishop in his diocese who believed in women's ordination and was pushed out by John-Paul II even after Weakland went to bat for him. In fact, a very famous priest was also pushed out for a similar reason a few years ago, defrocked I think. The Church acts very quickly whenever anyone says "Women's ordination seems good", a quickness that is really astounding when you look at how slow they are in acting against child abusers and those who cover up for them and put them in position to abuse again.

What we would term the progressive or social justice teachings of the church are rarely if ever used by bishops as a cudgel with threats of hellfire, but culture war issues are, because too many bishops are adjuncts of the Republican Party. Pope Francis is laying the hammer down, though, so hopefully the days of overtly political bishops using their religious authority to threaten their flocks into voting for their favored political candidates are over for the time being.

I do remember a bishop in New Mexico meeting with Bill Richardson to discuss the death penalty, and Richardson citing that meeting as pivotal in him signing a ban of it, so there is I suppose one bishop acting on Catholic theology to effect politics in a progressive way, but it was at the level of a private meeting with a Governor- not threatening parishioners with hellfire, not threatening (as far as we know) not to commune the Governor if he didn't sign, etc.- a private meeting at the Governor's request (I think) to provide moral guidance.

 

[Irenaeus]

While I understand and agree with your concerns about Catholicism 'getting political', as it were, and certainly there is merit to that, I still fail to see how, in the here-and-now of earthly life, we as a Church as a whole can not contribute to the political life of the nations in which we find ourselves, in so far as we do believe in certain things which make for the common good, both of communities as for nation states.

In particular I fail to see how Cardinal Burke is political, even in the issue of Communion: according to the Code of Canon Law, any person who publicly and pertinaciously supports or practices a gravely sinful activity cannot receive Communion. This is simply the public extension of the immemorial principle that even privately if one commits a grave sin, one ought not to receive Communion. This applies to everyone in the Church.

As for voting, I personally don't see how one could vote for a pro-choice candidate in good conscience (which is de facto the whole Democratic Party), if we take seriously the notion that the right to life is fundamental and non-negotiable.

 

[Armoured]

Honestly, it's all been downhill for the Order of St. John since they stopped wearing armour.

 

[IgnatiusOfAntioch]

One thing of concern I've had for years about Catholicism is how political it is. Just look at this forum. A Catholic should be independent and be able to see the awful things in both parties,

Actually you just described the Catholic position. Here is something on the subject from quite some time ago:

https://www.facebook.com/G.K.Cheste...10634906142/10152727358041143/?type=1&theater

 

[Irenaeus]

Agreed. Usually the Catholic view of politics is practically a "pox on both your houses".

 

[Armoured]

A few more armed and armoured Orders Militant. That's what we need. Sort the Middle East nonsense right out. Get back all the cool old cathedrals in Europe...

 

[Fish and Bread]

In particular I fail to see how Cardinal Burke is political

Burke has repeatedly gone after Democrats and supported partisan Republican groups. He's even brought religion into it and threatened people with hellfire for not voting his way- and he has only done it in situations where doing what he says would involve voting for the Republican candidate. He hasn't said people who vote for pro-torture candidates risk hellfire. He hasn't said that voting for warmongers who love capital punishment is a mortal sin. It's all about electing Republicans with him, and he attempts to do that in one of the worst ways I can think of- but using his position as a Cardinal to try to make people think they will go to hell if they don't adhere to his radical right-wing political stances. I frankly think the man should be defrocked. Pope Francis was harsher with him than I've seen anyone be with someone of his stature and I still think he went too easy on him.

As for voting, I personally don't see how one could vote for a pro-choice candidate in good conscience (which is de facto the whole Democratic Party), if we take seriously the notion that the right to life is fundamental and non-negotiable.

You know what's non-negotiable? FEEDING THE HUNGRY. Don't let people starve to death. CARING FOR THE SICK. Make sure people have access to health care. PROVIDING FOR THE ELDERLY and the disabled. Protect Social Security. THOU SHALT NOT KILL. Stop participating in unjust wars, start torturing people, stop capital punishment.

Jesus mentions poverty and charity a lot in the bible. Never once does he mention abortion. Not once. And abortion was something that was legal in the Roman empire. Jesus was more concerned with the people in front of us outside the womb. Now, that doesn't mean Jesus was for abortion, but when abortion becomes the only issue and everyone who's been born's welfare is off our political radar, our priorities are different from God's priorities and from basic humanity, decency, and valuing the sanctity of human life- ALL human life, not just the kind of human life that you can only view with a microscope that has no brain.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Exodus 21:22

When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.

Scripture says the penalty for the death of a fetus should be a monetary fine.

But, hey, by all means, let's throw everything else that a candidate might think out of the window because we need someone that theoretically is against abortion but can't implement an abortion ban because of the constitution, and who's election will result in the death of many already born people, who's lives are worth more than a monetary fine, scripturally speaking, because, you know, that's somehow the Christian position despite the bible and the moral consciences of most normal human beings.

You know what, I'm voting for Democrats. If Cardinal Burke somehow winds up in heaven and I wind up in hell over that, I'll make rude gestures at him from the depths of Hades, unrepentant for all eternity, because I DID THE RIGHT THING.

No just God would side with Cardinal Burke's position. Not the God I know. Not the God of the bible. Not the God of the Christian tradition. Not the God of Pope Francis. Cardinal Burke's God looks suspiciously like Ronald Reagan to me.

 

[pdudgeon]

has no one here considered the possibility that Cardinal Burke is being sheltered in his new position, so that in the future he might be available when needed?

 

[Irenaeus]

Hi Fish and Bread,

You know what's non-negotiable? FEEDING THE HUNGRY. Don't let people starve to death. CARING FOR THE SICK. Make sure people have access to health care. PROVIDING FOR THE ELDERLY and the disabled. Protect Social Security. THOU SHALT NOT KILL. Stop participating in unjust wars, start torturing people, stop capital punishment.

The only reason we have hungry people in the first place is because they were allowed to live.

Additionally, whether a particular war was unjust or just is an argument regarding which we may legitimately disagree. Such wars rarely feature in the average person's daily examination of conscience (if they do it as well). Torture is a similar thing. Capital Punishment...opposition to it in principle is simply not found in either Scripture or Tradition. The average person will probably never encounter Capital Punishment either. But abortion, that is something where at least 50 million lives have been taken in the United States alone. Even if we were pure Utilitarians, and were doing calculations solely based on numbers, that is a shocking statistic.

But again, you have to have people born, before we can even talk about warfare with them. They must exist for them to be tortured. They must live and breathe before we can even discuss execution. Abortion and our response to it is ontologically, logically and morally prior to discussion of the other topics, even though I do not deny they are important.

Finally, I don't think your portrayal of Burke is fair. I also don't think he would disagree with you about feeding the poor and such...what good Christian would disagree with you?

 

[JimR-OCDS]

has no one here considered the possibility that Cardinal Burke is being sheltered in his new position, so that in the future he might be available when needed?

I seriously doubt that this is the case.

Cardinal Burke has been at odds with other Bishops including Cardinal Dolan when Dolan was president of the USCCB, because Dolan will not refuse Catholic Politicians Holy Communion if they're pro-choice.

Jim

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Ok, so let's think this through---the Democrats champion illegal immigrants, the poor, low cost housing, workers' unions, protecting the environment, entitlements like SS and Medicare to protect the retired and elderly.

Now if I wanted to live in la-la land and pretend they just stood for these things, and nothing evil, I'd endorse them and find them intriguing and godly. But we all know that this is NOT all they stand for and even these things are questionable. Democrats protect abortion jealously. Fact. They always have. They always will. How could a person in good conscience support someone who'd allow a holocaust against little babies? How could a Catholic support a party that fights tooth and nail for a LGBT propaganda campaign and brave new world where the lines of gender and sex are so blurred and un-godly that it's a virtual monstrosity? How can we support a party that is often aligned with legalizing dope, euthanasia suicide garbage, and the overall culture of death?

Are they a party that cares or a party that wants to control through excessive government?

Then the Republicans are no better. Gotta keep the military-industrial complex oiled and constantly used! Invade countries, bomb, intrigue, CIA coups, war, war, war. If we listened to the GOP, we'd probably have been in Vietnam another 15 years, and we'd be in Iraq until 2090. They can't get enough war. PNAC anyone?

Republicans don't give a fig about the middle class. Never have. Never will. They outsource, they're greedy, they pander to the corporate goons, they don't care. They're gross polluters, liars, and cheats. They're usually very hypocritical. Half the time the anti-gay Republican politicians are caught in gay trysts!

Republicans want to bust up unions and give the boss all the cards.
They don't care about people having health care or access to the American dream. They are oligarchs. Always will be.

Sure, the Republicans ARE pro-life, are more against the menace of the LGBT propaganda machinery, they're more traditional, and more of them seem Christian, but with all that horrendous baggage, are we seriously as Christians to put our trust in these princes, sons of men?

In both there is NO salvation.

We aren't called to ELECT change. We're called to be it. We're called to make a difference with our own actions, not to elect people to do it for us.

I just don't understand this passionate political rhetoric believing one side is so much better than the other and that somehow religion and politics should be married!?

 

[frenchdefense]

Ok, so let's think this through---the Democrats champion illegal immigrants, the poor, low cost housing, workers' unions, protecting the environment, entitlements like SS and Medicare to protect the retired and elderly.

Now if I wanted to live in la-la land and pretend they just stood for these things, and nothing evil, I'd endorse them and find them intriguing and godly. But we all know that this is NOT all they stand for and even these things are questionable. Democrats protect abortion jealously. Fact. They always have. They always will. How could a person in good conscience support someone who'd allow a holocaust against little babies? How could a Catholic support a party that fights tooth and nail for a LGBT propaganda campaign and brave new world where the lines of gender and sex are so blurred and un-godly that it's a virtual monstrosity? How can we support a party that is often aligned with legalizing dope, euthanasia suicide garbage, and the overall culture of death?

Are they a party that cares or a party that wants to control through excessive government?

Then the Republicans are no better. Gotta keep the military-industrial complex oiled and constantly used! Invade countries, bomb, intrigue, CIA coups, war, war, war. If we listened to the GOP, we'd probably have been in Vietnam another 15 years, and we'd be in Iraq until 2090. They can't get enough war. PNAC anyone?

Republicans don't give a fig about the middle class. Never have. Never will. They outsource, they're greedy, they pander to the corporate goons, they don't care. They're gross polluters, liars, and cheats. They're usually very hypocritical. Half the time the anti-gay Republican politicians are caught in gay trysts!

Republicans want to bust up unions and give the boss all the cards.
They don't care about people having health care or access to the American dream. They are oligarchs. Always will be.

Sure, the Republicans ARE pro-life, are more against the menace of the LGBT propaganda machinery, they're more traditional, and more of them seem Christian, but with all that horrendous baggage, are we seriously as Christians to put our trust in these princes, sons of men?

In both there is NO salvation.

We aren't called to ELECT change. We're called to be it. We're called to make a difference with our own actions, not to elect people to do it for us.

I just don't understand this passionate political rhetoric believing one side is so much better than the other and that somehow religion and politics should be married!?

For a person who claims Catholics should not be political you seems awfully political in your thinking.

I think the Church should be out of politics too.

I also think how I vote is none of anyone's business and is between me and my conscience.

And that's all I have to say.