Cardinal Burke Had Better Shut Up
Cardinal Burke has now given an interview criticising the rather easy target of a fake Catholic university awarding a honour to a fake Catholic. I haven’t even read what the man had to say, as it is irrelevant.
Honestly: the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
The very man who has not only decided to shut up about the heresies and blasphemies of Amoris Laetitia, but has accused orthodox Catholics to be the real problem now has the almighty gall to try to remake a virginity for himself by waving the Catholic flag when it is easy and safe.
I have enough of these people. After the 8 April there can be only one criterion to value a bishop or a cardinal: if he has spoken against Amoris Laetitia or not. Silence, excuses, and other subterfuges do not wash now, and will not wash until they stop playing with dolls and speak out against AL.
I am done with this man and with all those who have willingly chosen a vocation that should see them undergoing persecution without even flinching, and prefer to look at blasphemy in silence to keep their (abundant) privileges. I am sick and tired of this cheap orthodoxy that costs nothing, and comes from those who are called to be the very first to pay the price. I refuse to consider this man, and all those wannabe orthodox clergy, as examples of anything but pusillanimity and dereliction of duty.
To be a Cardinal is a great honour exactly because of the great burden the position entails. The magnificence of a Cardinal’s life is, and very rightly so, the counterpart of the duty to set it at naught (if needs be) when the time comes. i will write this again and again: ubi honor, ibi onus. He who does not want to bear the burden is not worthy of the honour. He should be man enough to admit it and ask to be sent to a faraway parish, where he can work as a simple priest; hopefully having the guts to defend truth is his new, far little sphere of influence, and without insulting those who not only love truth before luxury, but are helping him to do his job properly.
Cardinal Burke is unworthy of his red robe. Not only that: he even blamed us for what Francis did! A slap in the face, this one, that Mueller, Brandmueller, Sarah, & Co. and the other professional blind and mute Cardinals (= all of them) at least had the sense to avoid. Unworthy all of them, but he unworthy the most.
God knows I liked this man. But the facts shout louder than any sympathy or emotional attachment to a cherished image of “orthodox V II Cardinal”. There are none. I am done with Burke and with all those like him. He has betrayed the cause as he has insulted those who defend it. He has no excuses.
The Cardinal was weighted, and he was found wanting.
He could now at least have the common decency to shut up.
M
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Posted on May 5, 2016, in Bad Shepherds, Catholicism, Conservative Catholicism, Traditional Catholicism. Bookmark the permalink. 16 Comments.
Mundabor's Blog 
In a way, silence is an understandable reaction. Their superior has spoken and they lack the courage to contradict him in public. Deplorable, of course, but I understand human weakness and the fear of losing a comfortable existence, social acceptance, approval of your peers and all that. There is room for weak men in the Church, for we are all sinners and have our weaknesses. They will have to answer to God for their behavior, but I am not going to condemn them too harshly.
Burke, however, went beyond silence and attacked his own side. In my opinion, this is truly despicable. If, for some reason, you are too weak to fight the enemy, at least stand aside and don’t get in the way of others doing your job for you. Otherwise, you are merely a fifth columnist, a traitor and a backstabber.
Nobody likes a traitor – he is hated and despised even by the side that uses him.
I strongly disagree.
Silence in front of heresy and blasphemy is *never* an understandable reaction in a bishop or a cardinal.
I certainly understand the priest who feels he would deprive his sheep of a good pastor if he were to speak out loud. But a bishop or, even more, a cardinal have the duty to speak out loud.
M
Of course they have the duty to speak out. Did you even read the rest of my comment? Or is it just an emotional reaction to the first few words? In no way did I deny their duty to speak out. I have no idea where you got that impression from… I merely compared silence borne out of weakness or fear with what Burke did (attacking his own side).
Have the silent ones failed their duty? Absolutely. Will they have to answer for that one day before their creator? Of course. Is their silence sinful? No doubt. But still they were merely weak (and human weakness is understandable – not, of course, excusable, but understandable) while Burke committed treason (which is just despicable). That’s a big difference.
Suppose I am a soldier and my country is at war. My duty is to man a certain outpost during battle. But being weak and cowardly, I fail in my duty. I do not guard the outpost, do not keep watch. Instead I cower behind some nearby tree hoping the enemy won’t see me. The enemy attacks, I survive the assault, but many of my comrades are dead.
Now suppose instead, I decide to give away the coordinates of my comrades’ camp to the enemy and take an active part in guiding the enemy to them, then shooting up my own countrymen. That’s what Burke does.
Are you really saying that’s morally the same thing?
I have read your entire comment, though many times I am tempted not to. And my impression is that you condemned Burke whilst you gave a half-pass to the others. Which is very, very wrong, so I have corrected this.
M
Amen. As an aside, I have seen from friends a photo of his little palace in Rome, fortunately for him not far from the Fraternity of St Peter church. It doesn’t look like ‘the hinterland’ to me. So his exile is not so severe as, say, Iran. Yet maybe it is enough to keep him thinking he has suffered enough. Whatever. He does not win me over. I have Archbishop Lefebvre as a prototype and so my standards are perhaps a little too high.
You say: “Cardinal Burke is unworthy of his red robe. Not only that: he even blamed us for what Francis did! A slap in the face, this one…”
I think you are misinterpreting the opening comments of his statement about AL. He was criticizing people who think AL marks a huge new “opening” of the Church vis-a-vis the divorced and civilly remarried. I didn’t take that as criticizing people like you and me — rather, he was subtly (evidently, TOO subtly for you and many others) taking a dig at the mainstream media and liberal Catholics.
Come on.
Get serious.
Enough with twisting and justify the unjustifiable.
M
Painful to contemplate, but obscure parish priest in Rhinelander, Wisconsin seems about right. Cardinal Burke you could have have been a Lion for the Faith!
That is one good priest.
Burke is a sheep for the faith.
M
Bravo, M. Bravissimo! I’ve always been suspicious of Burke since his days in St. Louis.
I trusted him.
I really liked him.
I was wrong.
M
I wholly agree. Just one thing, however, Ive lived a couple blocks from Notre Dame my whole life (and may or may not have attended there…) and they are actually not a Jesuit school, but rather CSC, run by the Holy Cross Fathers.
Thanks.
Its easy to talk about someone else giving up all they have and becoming irrelevant in order to attack falsehood, its another thing when you are confronted yourself with the reality of actually doing it. Prudence is the Cardinal’s strategy, not foolishly sacrificing himself without any results for the people. Be patient and pray.
This kind of mentality is exactly what brought us to this dire situation in the first place.
You are not a cardinal. I am not, either. He is.
He has no excuse, and if he does not feel that he can do it, he should feel he cannot, in conscience, be a Cardinal.
I am not a Cardinal, either. No honours and palaces for me. No luxury life. No exceptional prestige.
Burke wants to have his cake and not pay for it.
M
Hg Potter,
Cardinal Burke would not have become irrelevant if he spoke out about the latter day scouraging of Our Lord via Amoris Laetitia. The document promotes lies! Someone up high needs to say it. Someone needs to use the “h” word to save souls!
Faithful Catholics would have rallied around him. And so what if the pope and his evil minions sought to humiliate him? Christ would draw him closer.