This interview is from last week but because it was Holy Week, I postponed posting it.
New interview with Cardinal Burke
by Riccardo Cascioli
Editor
Translated from
April 1, 2015
“I am not against the Pope. I have never spoken against him. I have always thought of my activity as a support for the Petrine ministry. All I want is to serve the truth”.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke regrets the negative campaign that is being carried out against him. Now 66, ordained bishop by John Paul II, an esteemed expert in canon law, he was called to Rome in 2008 by Benedict XVI to be Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and elevated to cardinal in 2010.
In recent months, he has been portrayed as a fanatic ultra-conservative, anti-Vatican II, conspirator against Pope Francis, and even someone ready for a schism in case the next family synod has less-than-pleasing results.
The campaign has been so strong that even in Italy, some bishops have refused to host his lectures in their dioceses. And when he is allowed to hold public meetings – as he did recently in some cities in northern Italy – he has unfailingly met with priests who protest against him, accusing him of creating propaganda against the Pope.
“This is all nonsense, and I really do not understand this attitude. I have never said a single word against the Pope, I have been trying only to serve the truth, which is a task we all have. I have always considered my interventions, my activities, as a support to the Petrine ministry. The persons who know me can say that I am not an anti-papist. On the contrary, I have always been very loyal, and I have always wanted to serve the Holy Father which I am doing even now”.
Indeed, meeting him in his apartment just off St. Peter’s Square, the cardinal, with his affable manners and his very spontaneous way of speaking, seems thousands of miles distant from the image created of him by the MSM of a grim and scowling defender of ‘cold doctrine’.
Cardinal Burke, in the debates that preceded and followed the first family synod, some of your statements did sound like a criticism of Pope Francis, or at least, were interpreted as such. For example, there was much outcry when you answered “I will resist” when asked what you would do if the Pope decided to allow communion for ‘unqualified’ remarried divorcees.
But that was a distortion. There was no reference at all to Pope Francis. But I believe that since I have spoken very clearly on matrimony and the family, there are those who wish to neutralize me by depicting me as an enemy of the Pope, or even as someone ready for schism, using the answer that I made in an interview for a French TV station.
So how should your response be interpreted?
Very simply. The journalist asked he what I would do if, hypothetically, not referring to Pope Francis, a Pope made a decision that is against Catholic doctrine and against established Church practice. I said I would resist, that I would be dutybound to resist, because we are all in the service of the truth, starting with the Pope, whoever he is.
The Church is not a political organism in terms of power. Her power is Jesus Christ and his Gospel. That is why I replied that I would resist, and it would not be the first time that this happens in the Church. There have been various moments in history when someone had to resist the Pope, starting with St. Paul with regard to St. Peter in the dispute over the Jewish Christians who wished to impose circumcision on Greek converts.
In my case, I am not resisting Pope Francis because he has not done anything against doctrine. I don’t see myself in a battle with the Pope as I am being portrayed.
I am not promoting the interests of a group or a party – all I am doing, as a cardinal, is to be a teacher of the faith.
Another major accusation against you is your supposed passion for lace and finery, which is said depreciatively, since the Pope cannot tolerate ecclesiastical finery…
The Pope has never let me know that he is not pleased with my vestments which have always been within the norms of the Church. I celebrate liturgy in the Extraordinary Form as well, which requires liturgical vestments that are not used in the Ordinary Form, and I always use vestments according to the form I am celebrating.
I have not made an issue of the Pope’s style of vesting. Every Pope has his own style, and it is not as if he imposes this on all other bishops. I don’t understand why this is a controversy at all.
But the newspapers often use a photograph in which you are using headgear that is definitely anachronistic…
Oh, that! It’s incredible, but I can explain. The photo was disseminated after
Il Foglio used it to illustrate an interview with me during the synodal assembly last October. The interview went very well, but unfortunately, they used a photo that was out of context, and I regret that, because it gave the wrong impression of me as someone who lives in the past.
What happened was that shortly after I was named cardinal I was invited to a diocese in southern Italy to give a lecture on liturgy. For the occasion, the organizer gifted me with an antique cardinal’s hat that he had found somewhere. So I was holding it, and had no intention of using it at all, but he asked me to wear it at least for one photograph. And that was the only time I used the hat.
Unfortunately, the photo went round the world and it has since been used to give the impression that I go around wearing that hat. But I have never used it, not even for a ritual.
You have also been identified as the inspiration, if not the promoter, of the “Appeal to Pope Francis on the Family” which was posted on many websites of the ‘traditionalist’ world in order to invite signatories.
I signed the document, but it was not my initiative nor my idea. Much less did I write or collaborate on the text. Those who say otherwise are wrong. As far as I know, it was a lay initiative. The text was shown to me and I signed on, as many other cardinals have done.
One other accusation is that you are anti-Vatican II…
There are labels that are easily given but they do not correspond to reality. All of my theological education in major seminary was based on the documents of Vatican II, and even today, I continue to study these documents in depth. I am not at all against Vatican II, and if anyone reads my writings, they will see that I cite Vatican II documents frequently.
That with which I do not agree is the so-called ‘Spirit of Vatican II’, this interpretation of the Council which is not faithful to its documents and claims to have created something totally new, a ‘new church’ which they say has nothing to do the any of the so-called aberrations of the past.
In this, I follow fully the luminous presentation made by Benedict XVI in his Christmas address to the Roman Curia in 2005. The famous address in which he explained the correct hermeneutic for Vatican II, which is that of reform in continuity, against the hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity that many sectors have been carrying on. Benedict XVI’s intervention was really brilliant and explains everything.
Many things that happened after Vatican II and attributed to it in fact have nothing to do with the Council. That is the simple truth.
Still, it remains that Pope Francis has seemingly ‘punished’ you by transferring you from the Apostolic Signatura to being Patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta.
The Pope gave an interview to the Argentine newspaper
La Nacion in which he explained his reasons. That says it all, and it is not for me to comment.
[The Pope said he had told Cardinal Burke that the persons he had charged with proposing Curial reforms were considering merging the Vatican's judicial dicasteries together and that therefore, Burke had not been confirmed to stay on as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, but that meanwhile, the position of patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta had become vacant, and so he decided to appoint Burke to it.
"We needed a smart American who would know how to get around and I thought of him for that position. I suggested this to him long before the synod. I said to him 'This will take place after the synod because I want you to participate in the synod as Dicastery Head.' As the chaplain of Malta he wouldn´t have been able to be present. [Sorry, Your Holiness, but that is a bit disingenuous: It is your prerogative to name any bishops or cardinals to the synodal assemblies: the cardinals you appoint do not have to be members of the Curia - consider Cardinal Caffarra of Bologna!] He thanked me in very good terms and accepted my offer, I even think he liked it. Because he is a man that gets around a lot; he does a lot of travelling and would surely be busy there. It is therefore not true that I removed him because of how he had behaved in the synod."
The explanation sounded to to me at the time more convenient than convincing.] I can only say, without violating any secret, that the Pope never told me nor gave me the impression that he wished to punish me for anything.
But certainly, your ‘bad image’ has something to do with what Cardinal Kasper in recent days has called ‘the synodal battle’ – which seems to be growing in intensity as the October synodal assembly approaches. At what point are we?
I would say that there is now a much broader discussion on the themes to be taken up at the synod, and this is a very positive development. But that is why I do not understand all the hue and cry last year about the book Remaining in the truth of Christ, to which I had contributed, along with four other cardinals and four specialists on the sacrament of matrimony.
It is that which gave rise to the theory of a conspiracy against the Pope, something recently reiterated in Corriere della Sera by Alberto Melloni, which resulted in a judicial complaint from the Italian publishing house Cantagalli.
It’s simply absurd. How is it possible to charge with conspiring against the Pope persons who simply present what the Church has always taught and practised on matrimony and communion?
Of course, the book was written as an aid in view of the family synod, in order to rebut the line proposed by Cardinal Kasper. But the book is not polemical at all. It is a presentation that is most faithful to tradition, and is of the highest possible scientific quality in terms of the arguments employed. I am absolutely willing to receive criticism about its contents, but to say that we are part of a conspiracy against the Pope is unacceptable.
But who has been fomenting this witch hunt?
I have no direct information but surely, there is a group that wishes to impose on the Church not just Cardinal Kasper’s line on remarried divorcees or other couples in irregular situations, but also their position on other themes to be discussed at the synod.
For example, the notion of finding positive elements for extramarital or homosexual sex relations. It is obvious there are forces pushing in this direction, and therefore they wish to discredit those of us who are seeking to defend the teaching of the Church.
I have nothing personal against Cardinal Kasper. For me, the question is simply to present the teaching of the Church, which in this case, comes from words said by the Lord himself.
In view of some themes that have come up forcefully during the 2014 synod, there is new talk about the gay lobby in the Vatican.
I am not in a position to specify precisely, but I am seeing increasingly that there is a force in that direction. I am seeing individuals who, consciously or unconsciously, are carrying forward a homosexualist agenda. I don’t know if this is organized, but it is obvious there is a force of this kind.
In the October synod, we said that homosexuality really had nothing to do with the family, that a synod dealing with it should be called if the subject is to be discussed properly. Instead, the subject turns up in the final Relatio from October 2014, even if it had not been discussed by the synodal fathers. [Which makes it even more questionable that the Pope himself restored that particular topic to the final Relatio although the paragraph concerning homosexuality had failed to receive the required two-thirds majority vote. This objection - that it had not even been discussed at the synodal assembly - was first brought up by many of those who stood up to protest that the intermediate Relatio had included subjects and/or positions that had not been discussed at all!]
One of the theological justifications in support of Cardinal Kasper that is often repeated today is ‘development of doctrine’ – not a change, but a deeper study that could lead to a new praxis.
There is a great mistake here. The development of doctrine, as it has been presented, for instance, by Blessed John Newman or other good theologians, means a deeper appreciation of the doctrine, not changing it. In any case, [in the Church] development does not lead to change.
One example would be the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist by Benedict XVI, Sacramentum caritatis, in which he presents the development of the acknowledgment of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which can be expressed in Eucharistic Adoration, because the Eucharist is to be received within us.
Benedict XVI explained, citing St. Augustine, that if it is true that the Lord gives himself to us in the Eucharist to be consumed, it is also true that we cannot acknowledge the reality of the presence of Jesus in the form of the Eucharistic species (bread and wine) without adoring the species. This is an example of doctrinal development, but that does not change the doctrine of Jesus’s presence in the Eucharist.
One of the major controversies in the synod is the presumed contraposition between doctrine and practice, doctrine and mercy. Even the Pope often hammers on the pharisaical attitude of those who use doctrine and thus block off love of neighbor.
I think one must distinguish between what the Pope says on some occasions and those who claim a contraposition between doctrine and praxis. A conflict between doctrine and practice can never be allowed in the Church, because we live the truth that Christ communicates to us through his holy Church, and truth is never a cold thing. It is truth which opens up room in us for love, and to truly love, one must respect the truth of persons, in the specific situations in which they are found.
And so, to establish any kind of contraposition between doctrine and praxis does not reflect the reality of our faith. Those who support Cardinal Kasper’s thesis – changing discipline without ‘touching’ doctrine – must explain how that can be possible.
If the Church allows communion to a person who is bound in holy matrimony [by his/her Church marriage] but is living with another person in a conjugal relationship – therefore, in a state of adultery – how can that be allowed, and say at the same time that marriage is indissoluble? A contraposition between doctrine and praxis is a false one which must be rejected.
But it is true that doctrine can be employed without love…
Of course, and that is what the Pope is denouncing – a use of the law or of doctrine to advance a personal agenda, to dominate others. But this does not mean that there is a problem with doctrine and discipline. Only that there are persons of ill will who can commit abuses, for instance, by interpreting the law or doctrine in a way that harms persons. Or applying the law without love, by insisting on the reality of the situation in which a person is, but without charity.
Because even if a person is in mortal sin, we should love the person and help him as the Lord helped the adulterous woman and the Samaritan woman. He was very clear in announcing the state of sin in which they had been, but at the same time, he showed great love in asking them to get out of that situation. Which is what the Pharisees did not do, who instead demonstrated a cruel legalism: They denounced the violation of the law but without giving any assistance to the culprit to emerge from a state of sin and thus recover peace in her life.
In his own way, of course, Cardinal Burke has been as jesuitical in his statements about Pope Francis as the latter has been in any statement that might be considered doctrinally heterodox (i.e., knowing how to stay just within the line that delimits orthodox doctrine, and in most of his statements about his pet agenda for Catholics living in a state of chronic sin (a condition he never verbalizes about them, of course).
So Cardinal Burke has been very careful to keep his criticisms of Kasper and his followers very general, never personalizing it (he has identified Kasper by name) - and if many (especially his critics) are clicking their heels and making a reflexive genuflection to Pope Francis every time they hear or read one of Cardinal Burke's general criticisms, claiming that Burke is thereby opposing the Pope, it can only mean that they fully believe the Pope is on their side, and that for Burke to criticize their views is to criticize the Pope himself.
I'm not faulting Cardinal Burke for his prudence in not directly criticizing the Pope - he is still a cardinal, after all, and any open indication that could be misconstrued as disloyalty to the Pope - as he is already being accused of even without objective evidence - would be quite unseemly.
His critics are willfully blind to the fact that when Cardinal Pell led the synodal fathers who took the floor, in the presence of Pope Francis, last October, to protest the trumped-up interim Relatio of the Synod, the #2 man at the Vatican clearly indicated he was on the side of orthodox doctrine. Yet none of Burke's critics piped up at all to accuse Pell of opposing the Pope. He has since written an article stating his position on these controversial issues, but since he is now the Pope's principal lieutenant in the Curia, Burke's critics cannot take aim at him. Nor can they take aim at Cardinal Mueller, who has been staunchly reiterating the orthodox position on marriage and the Eucharist, because they know he is the Pope's trump card to show up Catholics who now accuse the Pope directly of heterodoxy, to whom he can say, "Look, Mueller is still my CDF Prefect!" (i.e., guardian and guarantor of his orthodoxy).
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/04/2015 20:10]