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| Cardinal Burke |
By Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi
Speaking on Tuesday at the
ultra-conservative Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, Cardinal
Raymond Burke gave prepared remarks designed to dissuade next month’s Synod of
Bishops from doing what Francis had already done. Burke expressed grave reservations
about the very proposals that were released the same day in Francis’ Motu
Proprio concerning
annulments in the Catholic Church. Francis announced his plans to make it
“easier” for Roman Catholics to get divorced, though they use the term
‘annulment’. Catholic doctrine does not recognize divorce, and members who
divorce and re-marry are considered to be living in sin and are banned from
receiving communion and other church sacraments.
It should be recalled that
last June, the Vatican released an evil working document for the Synod, called an Instrumentum Laboris. In it are a couple of
sections (114 and 115) dealing with streamlining “annulment”, including
recommendations by some of the participants in last year’s Synod that
diocesan bishops be permitted to carry out the procedure on their own and that
the automatic review process be done away with. There was every reason to suppose that
these would be on the table for a vote by the Synod in October.
However, apparently
realizing that he would not succeed if such a vote is allowed, Francis took
matters into his own hands, not only doing away with the automatic review, for
which there was widespread support at last year’s Synod, but also allowing
local bishops to grant uncontested annulments within 45 days, about which,
according to the Instrumentum, there was “no agreement.” Francis
thereby served notice that he is prepared to make radical changes in
ecclesiastical rules whether or not the upcoming Synod votes for them — as in,
certainly, “permitting” a “penitential path” to Communion for those living in
the sin of adultery, for the divorced and remarried.
Burke began by declaring that
the Synod cannot decide such matters, which would involve amending
canon law. “The Synod of Bishops has no authority to change doctrine and
discipline,” he said. Burke then proceeded to dump on both recommendations,
saying they effectively violated the church’s doctrinal obligation to
determine that a given marriage is truly a “nullity.” The whole enterprise, he
said, reveals the dangers of “sentimentalism” and “a false compassion,”
reflecting a “post-canonical antinomianism” that has afflicted the church
since the end of the Second Vatican Council.
Why did Burke go ahead
with his speech when, as even the folks in Steubenville cannot have
failed to notice, the “pope” had just, on his own authority, promulgated new
canon law (here and here) incorporating both recommendations? As the
saying goes, Roma locuta est, causa
finita est (“Rome
has spoken, the case is closed”).
Pontiffs have been laying
down canon law on their own say-so since the 11th century, so Burke,
traditionalist that he is, can hardly claim that Francis I has no
warrant for doing likewise. But as the Washington Post reported Monday, he went so far as to declare in a recent
television interview that Francis “does not have the power to change
teaching [or] doctrine.”
Thus the cardinal
certainly believes this “pope” has acted beyond his authority in changing the
annulment procedure as he has done. However, Burke noted that the Vatican
already attempted a lessening of the procedures for the United States in the 70s
and early 80s, leading to an impression of “Catholic divorce.” Burke firmly
rejected the notion that people could be too weak to conform to God’s law on
marriage, saying that Our Lord has assured us that He gives to us all the grace
we need to live our lives in His will.
“In the present moment
when the attacks on matrimony and on the family even within the Church seem the
most ferocious,” he said, “it is the Church who must show to the whole of
society the truth in all its richness and thus the beauty and the richness of
the truth about marriage.”
“The Synod Fathers and all
faithful Christians must be willing to suffer,” he added, “to honour and foster
Holy matrimony.”
He warned that “confusion
and error on holy matrimony” are being “sown by Satan in society and in the
Church.” Marriage, he said, is “under a ferocious and diabolical attack.”
Responding to Church
leaders who have called for false accommodation with the world, even for
silence in the face of homosexual liaisons being accepted as “marriage,” he
said we must “call things by their proper name in order not to risk
contributing to confusion and error.” That, “according to Divine wisdom, the
Church must always speak the truth with love.”
Nominal Catholics will of
course ignore Cardinal Burke's warning; for, indeed, the serious challenge to
our Faith as Catholics posed by Francis' "pontificate" is what many
are even yet to realize. As Kelly Bowring, a theologian, wrote just recently in
his piece, ‘Taking
Offense at Pope Francis… Just the Beginning’:
“It is not a question as
to whether Pope Francis is just a liberal pope, a misunderstood pope, a Jesuit
pope, a pastoral pope, or even possibly a heretical pope and an anti-pope...What
we do now know is that, as prophecy rightly warned, Pope Francis has begun to
wage a campaign against the traditional Church. He is engaging in subtly and
even cunningly moving the Church from a concern for revelation, conversion and
salvation to one that focuses almost exclusively on humanism, socialism and the
environment. The reality of sin and Hell are by effect being undermined.
Compassion for the sinner is being emphasized, without equal emphasis on repentance.
The problem is that this leads to people choosing hell who refuse to turn their
backs on mortal sin. Pope Francis is leading the Church into the greatest
crisis in her history, as prophecy said he would and as many commentators are
now admitting he is doing.
“Does not the Holy Spirit
speak through the prophets, and thus should we not listen to solid divine
prophecy, especially as it begins to prove true over time?...Prophecy is clear
about what is unfolding and coming, and looking at what is going on in the
world and in the Church today confirms the writing is on the wall. Prophecy
tells us that the Church is about to be torn asunder and split into two camps,
and this by her own ministers, where the visible Church will become the false
counterfeit Church and the true Church will have to go underground. It won’t be
long now before the divide within the Church becomes formalized and truly
colossal. It seems more and more apparent that plans are already underway to
form a new church in league with the world; one that by effect becomes more and
more opposed to Christ and His Law of truth...
“The last 3 years shows us
that as the power of Pope Francis rises, anyone who dares to challenge him is
being ignored or removed, even in the highest places within the Church. The
offenses we have received from him are already so many it’s hard to keep up.
Thus, blessed is he who sees what is going on and thus rightly takes offense at
him and courageously stands up for the true Faith in these times...
“I would even say that
taking offense at Pope Francis is now the only right and reasonable response.
Under his leadership, it seems the Catholic Church is entering the Great
Deceit, as he leads the Church to embrace the secular world where sin is no
longer being acknowledged as sin. It is becoming clear that he is turning the
Church’s teachings upside down. And it seems clear he is camouflaging his real
intentions, especially with double talk, so that they are so easily justified
in the minds of the innocent, many of who unfortunately are accepting his
apparent veiled deceit without compunction”.
Listen to Cardinal Burke’s
speech at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=32&v=R7jxS5-wJ8c
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