Cardinal Burke: "I Will Resist."

I was wondering if Cardinal Burke’s audience with Pope Francis would have resulted in a demand that he cease speaking out publicly.  Apparently not.  Cardinal Burke has given an interview on French TV in which he is asked what he plans to do if Pope Francis continues with so-called pastoral approaches that have the effect of undermining, if not obliterating, the sacred deposit of the Faith on marriage, the family……heck, the entire moral edifice of the Faith is under attack.

The interview has already received broad coverage, but keeping with my typical day late and dollar short mode of operation, I thought I’d glom on and add a few piffling comments.

The comment that has received the most attention came after the interviewer asked Cardinal Burke what he would do if Pope Francis insisted on a promoting changes that cannot be reconciled with the timeless belief and practice of the Church, Burke responded:

I will resist. I cannot do anything else. There is no doubt that this is a difficult time, this is clear, this is clear.

Cardinal Burke also described the situation that Pope Francis is forcing as painful and worrisome.  Further, he made clear that the “pastoral approaches” being proposed have the effect – however they are described or implemented – of destroying Doctrine:

I cannot accept that communion be given to a person who is living in an irregular union, because it is adultery. On the matter of persons of the same sex, this has nothing to do with matrimony. This is a suffering that some persons have, of being attracted – against nature, sexually – to persons of the same sex. Those people, we must help them to live chastely. But there is no relation to marriage and family, it is a separate issue.

And yet by dragging the matter of sodomy into a Synod on the family, the progressives have already scored an enormous victory, getting wide areas of the Church discussing grave perversion on the same level as the rightly-ordered (by God) family.

Cardinal Burke also discussed the limits of a Pope’s power, and how even he cannot change solemn Doctrine.  Not that there is not a grave temptation to try.

This gets me back to one of my old warhorses, Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.  If there is a Doctrine in the Church that has, for all practical effect, been “changed,” that is it.  I say that, because if 80+% of self-described Catholics fail to accept the Real Presence, and 90+% reject the intrinsic evil of contraception, I would hazard that 98 to 99 percent of the Church no longer accepts Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, even when rather liberally interpreted.  Yes, officially, that Doctrine – as well attested to and defined as any in the Church’s long history – remains “on the books,” but even very conservative priests and prelates so water it down that entry to Heaven is open to essentially anyone, when, in the past, the mass belief of the Church was the diametric opposite.

That is one major reason why I don’t feel tremendously reassured when I see people say “well, this Pope may do this or that, but we know he can’t change Doctrine, so don’t worry.”  Perhaps……but we have seen an absolutely key Doctrine (what could be more key than the conditions surrounding salvation, and the degree under which it can be obtained?) so radically minimized and ignored that the effect is essentially the same. I guess a fig leaf remains, but not much more.

Discuss. I am running very late.  I am a convert whose entire family remains outside the Church.  I pray for their conversion, as I pray daily for their salvation, but I am very concerned at the prospects of people I love very much.  This matter is most intimate to my concerns.  It would be so very easy for me to pretend that being outside the Church poses little or essentially no barrier to salvation, but I know that is not the case.  My sensus fidei – which I pray is well formed – tells me to pray and fast ever more for their conversion, that if I don’t………well, I hate to contemplate the eventualities.

I guess I’m just looking for that “doctrinal certainty” that self-seeking neo-pelagian disciplinarian legalist restorationists are always craving to calm our nervous tempers and chase away our insecurities.  Validation……that’s it.

Do you ever get the impression someone doesn’t like us very much?

Source: https://veneremurcernui.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/cardinal-burke-i-will-resist/

Prayers Pleasing To God

Self-Sufficiency

Modernist Maniacs: Tradition Trapped in The Vortex

Best Trained Dog Ever

Pope Francis Is Not Saving Souls, But Losing Them

Posted on February 4, 2015

Pope Francis’ concept of the Catholic Church is a welcoming home for all the Lesbians, Gays, Transgenders, Bisexual, divorced and remarried, Evangelicals and atheists.  He feels that these people have been oppressed by the Church by Her condemnation of these “sins” and he wants to welcome them into the “hospital church” to be accepted and healed.

I think he puts them in the same category as the poor, the unemployed youth and anyone else who may have been oppressed.  Although his compassion is to be commended, it is misplaced.   These people are living in sin and will go to hell if they are not corrected before they die.

The pope has a pattern.

1. He receives a letter from someone feeling alienated from the church because he is gay or had a “sex change”, (which is impossible genetically, a boy is always a boy no matter what operations he may use to change his exterior body. Boys have an X and a Y chromosome. Girls have two X chromsomes), or is divorced and remarried, or is a single mother separated from a violent boyfriend, who could have killed her baby by abortion but did not.
2. Then there comes the phone call from the pope to make them feel accepted by the “church”.
3. In some cases, they are invited to have a private audience with him.
4. Then somehow the media hears about it.
5. The liberals acclaim the pope as a hero.
6. Almost every Catholic and nonCatholic gets confused.
7. People begin to believe that the Catholic Church can, and has changed Her teachings on sexual morality.
8. Most Catholics who have already accepted the “world’s new morality” feel affirmed in their deviant life styles.
9. Their conscience is appeased because they have heard from the pope that their deviant life style is not immoral after all.
10. In fact it is something to celebrate and be proud of.
11. More people copy these sinful “Catholics” immoral life styles.

These same people continue to die at every age imaginable, every minute, all over the world and here are the consequences:

1. These people are judged by God’s rules, not Pope Francis’ rules.
2. These people may be damned to hell for all eternity.
3. Their souls are lost, not saved.

Now let us look at what then happens to someone who might disagree with the pope and instead, uphold what Jesus teaches in the Holy Bible and His 2000 year old Catholic Church.

1. Progressive blogs, media, clerics and people strongly condemn them as extremist.
2. They are immediately labeled as unloving and extremely judgmental.
3. If they happen to speak the truth at a parish or Catholic school, an angry group of opposition is organized against them.
4. They justify their anger, hate and persecution of that person by quoting “their loving pope” who says “Who am I to Judge” and “Do not talk about Abortion or Birth control”.
5. The cardinals, (like Cardinal Burke), religious, (like Franciscan Friars),priests or persons who spoke the Catholic truth, are then demoted, removed, silenced or punished.
6. All over the world, traditional Catholics are being persecuted and suppressed by the pope, bishops, religious and other priests.
7. Being a believing and traditional Catholic is the only “unforgivable sin”.

The very first Spiritual Work of Mercy is to Admonish the sinner.  Yes, we Bible believing and Catholic Church believing people also love and care about the sinners.  We love those struggling with same sex attraction or gender identity confusion or any sinful temptation and confusion.  But we help them to realize;

• Sin is still sin.
• God loves us and put His commandments to protect us.
• God is just.
• Any unconfessed mortal sin at time of death will condemn us to hell for all eternity.
• Heaven is our true home and where true pleasure is to be found.

Let us keep on speaking the Biblical and Catholic truth no matter how much we are persecuted, judged, condemned, hated, silenced, called extremist and black listed. We are in great company with Jesus, St. John the Baptist and all the saints throughout history. Be a prophet of truth, you will be ridiculed, ostracized, called names, exiled and maybe soon, imprisoned or killed.  Jesus said: “Do not be afraid”.

 “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you.”  Matthew 5:11-12.