The “Correction” That Wasn’t One?

Cardinal Burke is here seen in the act of surrendering

 

I have already written that in this just begun 2017 we will have to get accustomed to a lot of absurd talk. It seems to me the recent interview of the Remnant with Cardinal Burke constitutes another example. 

Let us leave aside Burke’s initial triple salto mortale, when he states again (make no mistake: to try to justify five months of shameful inaction) that Amoris Laetitia  “is not an exercise of the papal magisterium” – an obvious, blatant contradiction with his actions from September on – . What I would like to focus on today is the following Q&A. 

MJM: So what’s next, Your Eminence? If Pope Francis fails to answer your dubia, what’s the next course of action? You’ve spoken of the possibility of elevating this to a formal correction. But what exactly does that look like?

Cardinal Burke: Well, it doesn’t look too much differently than the dubia. In other words, the truths that seem to be called into question by AL would simply be placed alongside what the Church has always taught and practiced and annunciated in the official teaching of the Church. And in this way these errors would be corrected. Does that make sense to you?

No, it does not make sense to me. It does not make sense to me because it does not make sense at all.  

A correction is, by definition, the stating of what is wrong together with the affirmation of what is right. My teachers at school did not write the correct spelling alongside the wrong one; they barred the wrong spelling, and put the right one in its place.  That was wrong, but this is right.

What the Cardinal is stating now equates to saying – and I do not see any other interpretation of this – that the Cardinals would publish a statement of what is right without even daring to explicitly say what is wrong with Amoris Laetitia.

This is not a correction. This is not even a criticism. This is first-class V II meowing.

Such an exercise does not need to be preceded by Dubia. The Cardinals could have done it anytime. Such a reaction would, actually, justify the criticism that the Dubia were uncalled for in the first place.  In short: Cardinal Burke’s answer is utter baloney. 

The only logical consequence of the refusal of the Pope to answer the Dubia is the open condemnation of the relevant AL points as heretical, and the rebuke of the Pope who refused to set things right by answering the Dubia.    

From this another logical necessity follows: that if the Pope keeps refusing to answer the Dubia and openly set things right, he must be declared a heretic himself.

It’s as simple as that. There is no escape from it. If Cardinal Burke thought he did not have the mettle for this, he was a fool in issuing the Dubia in the first place, much less publishing them.

I have been criticised for being sceptical about Cardinal Burke. But the fact is that I do not have a high degree of confidence in someone who, after an unprecedented attack to the faith, first criticises those who want to defend it and then awaits five months before he does something. This interview is, to me, another demonstration that Cardinal Burke must earn the confidence of faithful Catholics rather than think that, as he is one of the very few prelates meowing, the faithful will stand in awe in front of such magnificence.

No, the Cardinal’s plan does not make sense at all. It is the worst of V II cowardice and betrayal of Truth. It is like a government issuing an ultimatum and then, when the ultimatum is not complied with, proceeding to declare “disagreement” instead of war. It’s a loss of face, and the man is a fool if he thinks he can meow and be hailed as a Catholic lion. If he does what he says he will lose face, big time. Not for the first time. 

Do not put your faith in any V II prelate until he has earned it, no matter how long his cappa magna.  

These here are fair-weather shepherds. 

M