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| Burke |
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| Francis |
“... I, together with the other three Cardinals, are striving to be
loyal to the Holy Father by being loyal to Christ above all. By making public
our plea for clarity of doctrine and pastoral practice, we are hoping to make
this a discussion for all Catholics, especially our fellow bishops. Every
baptized person should be concerned about doctrine and moral practices
regarding the Holy Eucharist and Holy Matrimony, and about how we are to
identify good and evil actions. These matters affect all of us.
“Rather than being a matter of disloyalty to the Pope, our action is
deeply loyal to everything that the Pope represents and is obliged to defend in
his official capacity. Pope Francis has called for candid speech in the Church
a number of times, and has asked members of the hierarchy for openness and
accountability. We are being candid, with the fullest respect for the office of
the Holy Father, and exercising, according to the light of our consciences, the
openness and accountability which the Church has the right to expect of us.
“This is my duty as a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. I was not created
a Cardinal in order to receive an honorary position. Rather, Pope Benedict XVI
made me a Cardinal to assist him and his successors in governing the Church and
teaching the Faith. All Cardinals have the duty of working closely with the
Pope for the good of souls, and this is precisely what I am doing by raising
questions of grave importance regarding faith and morals. I would not be
fulfilling my duty as a cardinal, and therefore as counselor to the Pope, if I
remained silent on an issue of such serious matter.
“... The
issue is not about divorced and remarried couples receiving Holy Communion. It
is about sexually active but not validly married couples receiving Holy
Communion. ... It would contradict the Faith if any
Catholic, including the Pope, said that a person can receive Holy Communion
without repenting of grave sin, or that living in a marital way with someone
who is not his or her spouse is not a state of grave sin, or that there is no
such thing as an act that is always and everywhere evil and can send a person
to perdition.
“...I would also like to point out that only the first of our questions
to the Holy Father focuses on Holy Matrimony and the Holy Eucharist. Questions
two, three, and four are about fundamental issues regarding the moral life:
whether intrinsically evil acts exist, whether a person who habitually commits
grave evil is in a state of “grave sin”, and whether a grave sin can ever
become a good choice because of circumstances or intentions.” (Raymond Cardinal Burke)
Exclusive
Interview:
Cardinal Burke Explains
Plea to Pope for Clarity
Cardinal Burke Explains
Plea to Pope for Clarity
(First published by Catholic Action on
November 14, 2016)
Catholic
Action president, Thomas McKenna, was granted the following interview with
Raymond Cardinal Burke to further explain the intentions of the four cardinals
and the published documents entitled "Seeking Clarity: A Plea to Untie the
Knots in Amoris Laetitia":
Catholic Action: Your Eminence, thank you for taking the time
to have this interview with us about what you have published today. The
substance of the documents which you and the other Cardinals have made public
is called “Dubia.” Can you please explain what Dubia means
and what the presentation of Dubia involves?
Cardinal Burke: It is my pleasure to discuss these important matters with you. The
title of the document is, “Seeking Clarity: A Plea to Untie the Knots in
‘Amoris Laetitia’.” It has been co-authored by four cardinals: Walter Cardinal
Brandmüller, Carlo Cardinal Caffarra, Joachim Cardinal Meisner, and myself. My
fellow cardinals and I are publicizing a plea that we have made to the Holy
Father, Pope Francis, regarding his recent Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris
Laetitia. Portions of the document contain ambiguities and statements that
are like knots that cannot be easily untied and are causing great confusion.
Sharing the Pope’s devotion to Our Lady, Untier of Knots, we are asking him to clarify
these ambiguous statements and, with the help of God, to untie some of the
knotty statements of the document for the good of souls.
Dubia is the plural form of the
Latin word, dubium which means a question or a doubt. When, in
the Church, an important question or doubt arises about the faith itself or its
practice, it is customary for Bishops or priests or the faithful themselves to
articulate formally the question or doubt and to present it to the Roman
Pontiff and his office which is competent to deal with it. The formulation of
an individual question or doubt is called simply a dubium. If more
than one question or doubt is articulated, they are called dubia.
The Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia has
raised a number of questions and doubts in the minds of Bishops, priests and
the faithful, many of which have already been presented to the Holy Father and
discussed publicly. In the present case, four Cardinals have presented formally
to the Holy Father five fundamental questions or doubts regarding faith and
morals based on the reading of Amoris Laetitiae.
CA: Many
people in the Church right now are discussing what is designated as “pastoral.”
Can you tell us a little about the document you have published today, and how
that relates to being pastoral?
Truth
spoken with charity is clear and pastoral. It is never helpful pastorally to
leave important matters, in the present case matters touching upon the
salvation of souls, in doubt or in confusion. We four Cardinals, as Bishops who
are committed to the pastoral care of the universal Church and as Cardinals who
have the particular responsibility of assisting the Holy Father in the teaching
of the faith and in the fostering of its practice in the universal Church, have
judged it our responsibility to make public these questions for the sake of the
good of souls.
CA: This co-authored document is actually a number of documents, as the
headings indicate. Would you mind explaining why there are different parts, and
what they mean?
The core
of what we are publishing today is a letter which we four Cardinals initially
sent to Pope Francis, along with the dubia – that is, along
with a series of formal and serious questions – about Amoris Laetitia.
The process of submitting formal questions is a venerable and well-established
practice in the Church. When the question concerns a grave matter that affects
many of the faithful, the Church responds to these questions with a “yes” or
“no”, sometimes with explanation. We also sent a copy of the letter and dubia to
Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith which has the particular competence regarding such
questions.
In order
to provide the background for the letter and our questions about Amoris
Laetitia, we are also publishing a brief foreword and an
explanatory note, which explain the context of the letter and the dubia or
questions along with a commentary on each of the questions themselves.
CA: So
you are saying that you are publishing a letter that you sent to the Pope
privately. This is extraordinary. Isn’t this action objectionable from a
Christian point of view? Our Lord said in the Gospel of Matthew (18:15) that if
we have a problem with a brother, we are supposed to talk with him privately,
one-on-one, not publicly.
In the
same portion of Sacred Scripture to which you refer, Our Lord also said that,
after addressing a difficulty to a brother, individually and together with
others, without it being resolved, then, for the good of the Church the matter
is to be presented to the whole Church. This is precisely what we are doing.
There
have been many other statements of concern regarding Amoris Laetitia,
all of which have not received an official response from the Pope or his representatives.
Therefore, in order to look for clarity on these matters, three other Cardinals
and I used the formality of presenting fundamental questions directly to the
Holy Father and to the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the
Faith. No response has been given to these questions either. Therefore, in
making public our questions or dubia, we are being faithful to
Christ’s mandate to first talk with a person privately, then in a small group,
and finally, taking the matter to the Church as a whole.
CA: As
you say, Amoris Laetitia has been the subject of much
discussion, and even criticism. For example, you have famously stated that you
believe it is not a Magisterial document. Could you explain how your current
questions to the Holy Father relate to these other analyses of the Apostolic
Exhortation?
To
understand the present publication, we need to consider what has led up to it.
Just
after his election, in his first Sunday Angelus message, Pope Francis praised
Cardinal Walter Kasper’s understanding of mercy, which is a fundamental theme
in Amoris Laetitia. Only a few months later, the Vatican announced
an Extraordinary Synod about Marriage and Family for October 2014.
In
preparation for the Synod, I, along with four other Cardinals, an Archbishop,
and three theologians, published a book, Remaining in the Truth of
Christ. As a member of the Synod, I noted that the mid-term report lacked a
solid foundation in Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church. Later, I
agreed with other Cardinals that there was manipulation in the running of the
Synod itself, and in the writing of the final report of the Synod.
Prior to
the 2015 Synod, to which I was not invited, eleven Cardinals contributed to a
book about marriage and the family. Although I did not contribute to this book,
I read it with great interest. Also prior to the 2015 Ordinary Synod on the
Family, over 790,000 Catholics signed a “Filial Appeal” to Pope Francis about
the future of the family, asking him to say “a clarifying word” to dissipate
the “widespread confusion” about Church teaching. Along with other Cardinals, I
was a signatory. During the 2015 session of the Synod, thirteen
Cardinal-participants signed a letter to the Pope indicating their concern
about the manipulation of the process of the Synod.
In April
2016, Pope Francis published Amoris Laetitia as the fruit of
the 2014 and 2015 sessions of the Synod of Bishops. In the summer of 2016,
forty-five academics, including some prelates, wrote to the Holy Father and to
the College of Cardinals, asking the Pope to repudiate a list of erroneous
propositions that can be drawn from portions of Amoris Laetitia.
This received no public response.
On 29
August, 2016, I joined many bishops, priests, and lay faithful in signing a Declaration
of Fidelity to the Church’s Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted
Discipline. This also has received no public response.
My
position is that Amoris Laetitia is not Magisterial because it
contains serious ambiguities that confuse people and can lead them into error
and grave sin. A document with these defects cannot be part of the Church’s
perennial teaching. Because that is the case, the Church needs absolute clarity
regarding what Pope Francis is teaching and encouraging.
CA: Some
Catholics may be concerned that your current publication is an act of
disloyalty.
I,
together with the other three Cardinals, are striving to be loyal to the Holy
Father by being loyal to Christ above all. By making public our plea for
clarity of doctrine and pastoral practice, we are hoping to make this a
discussion for all Catholics, especially our fellow bishops. Every baptized
person should be concerned about doctrine and moral practices regarding the
Holy Eucharist and Holy Matrimony, and about how we are to identify good and
evil actions. These matters affect all of us.
Rather
than being a matter of disloyalty to the Pope, our action is deeply loyal to
everything that the Pope represents and is obliged to defend in his official
capacity. Pope Francis has called for candid speech in the Church a number of
times, and has asked members of the hierarchy for openness and accountability.
We are being candid, with the fullest respect for the office of the Holy
Father, and exercising, according to the light of our consciences, the openness
and accountability which the Church has the right to expect of us.
This is
my duty as a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. I was not created a Cardinal in
order to receive an honorary position. Rather, Pope Benedict XVI made me a
Cardinal to assist him and his successors in governing the Church and teaching
the Faith. All Cardinals have the duty of working closely with the Pope for the
good of souls, and this is precisely what I am doing by raising questions of
grave importance regarding faith and morals. I would not be fulfilling my duty
as a cardinal, and therefore as counselor to the Pope, if I remained silent on
an issue of such serious matter.
CA: If
I may, I would like to continue this line of thought. It is unclear how your
publication is being docile to the Pope’s desire for greater pastoral
sensitivity and creativeness in the Church. Hasn’t the Pope indicated his
position in a letter to the Argentine Bishops? Other Cardinals have said that
the proper way to read Amoris Laetitia is that it allows divorced-and-remarried
couples to receive communion in certain circumstances. In that light, one could
argue that your document is creating more confusion.
First, a
point of clarification. The issue is not about divorced and remarried couples
receiving Holy Communion. It is about sexually active but not validly married
couples receiving Holy Communion. When a couple obtains a civil divorce and a
canonical declaration that they were never validly married, then they are free
to marry in the Church and receive Holy Communion, when they are properly disposed
to receive. The Kasper proposal is to allow a person to receive Holy Communion
when he or she has validly pronounced marriage vows but is no longer living
with his or her spouse and now lives with another person with whom he or she is
sexually active. In reality, this proposal opens the door for anyone committing
any sin to receive Holy Communion without repenting of the sin.
I would
also like to point out that only the first of our questions to the Holy Father
focuses on Holy Matrimony and the Holy Eucharist. Questions two, three, and
four are about fundamental issues regarding the moral life: whether
intrinsically evil acts exist, whether a person who habitually commits grave
evil is in a state of “grave sin”, and whether a grave sin can ever become a
good choice because of circumstances or intentions.
It is
true that the Holy Father wrote a letter to the Argentinian Bishops, and that
some Cardinals have proposed the interpretations of Amoris Laetitia that
you have mentioned. However, the Holy Father himself has not clarified some of
the “knotty” issues. It would contradict the Faith if any Catholic, including
the Pope, said that a person can receive Holy Communion without repenting of
grave sin, or that living in a marital way with someone who is not his or her
spouse is not a state of grave sin, or that there is no such thing as an act
that is always and everywhere evil and can send a person to perdition. Thus, I
join my brother Cardinals in making a plea for an unmistakable clarification
from Pope Francis himself. His voice, the voice of the Successor of Saint
Peter, can dispel any questions about the issue.
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