Cardinal Brandmueller And The Duty Of Martyrdom.

Cardinal Brandmueller has thundered against the instrumentum laboris of the Amazonian synod. The accusations are heavy, and deservedly so: heresy and possible apostasy.

If someone does something good, it will not be your humble correspondent who criticises him. Cardinal Brandmueller behaved, this time, like a Cardinal. However, I note the following:

1. Almost all quotations are from V II documents. This guy is 90 and about to die, and he still has not understood where the problem lies.
2. It must be clear to any reasonable person that this Amazonian stuff would have never taken place, if Brandmueller himself and the other three kitten in red had whistled after very publicly wetting their lips. 

This is a bit like Hindenburg criticising Hitler. Whilst Brandmueller was never the Hindenburg of Francis, his refusal to act on the obvious heresy of Amoris Laetitia makes him an enabler of all heresies that came, and will come, after that disgraceful document.

And in case you ask why I single out Brandmueller, who is less bad than most, in preference to the many other Cardinals who are far more culpable than him, I answer this: that from a Catholic Cardinal like him, or Burke, I expect that they act way more than I do a faithless commie like Cupich; and that someone who believes in God must have a much clearer picture of the price to pay for his betrayal and lack of action than someone who clearly only believes in social justice and social envy like Cupich or, for that matter, Francis.

Understand this: a priest needs to exercise some prudence, lest his parish be deprived of a needed Catholic voice. But a Bishop already has an unconditional duty to speak. A Cardinal has, arguably, an even clearer and more urgent duty, as it is widely believed that the fastest way to stop a heretical Pope goes via the 150 or so Cardinals, not via the 8000 or so Bishops.

As to the consequences, I smile when people write on my comment box nonsense like “you can’t condemn him: he would be persecuted!”. We are not talking of the accountant of the fourth floor here. We are not talking of the baker down the road. We are talking of bishops and cardinals: people told and trained to die for Christ at a moment’ s notice, and glad to be able to offer their martyrdom. 

A Cardinal dresses in red so that he is constantly reminded of the martyrdom of so many before him. His is not to reason what might happen after he speaks. His job is to speak. If he gets poisoned, may his reward in heaven be bigger, and I hope he will be prudent enough not to find himself in a place where he could be poisoned (look at Vigano’: faithful, but smart!). But the duty to speak is unquestionably there, and no fear of sanction, or death, or torture can speak against it.

We are talking of bishops and cardinals here, not accountants and bakers. Yes, from everyone is martyrdom expected. But from the first, it is expected first.

Cardinal Brandmueller has adopted the Burkian strategy: no action in essentials, but criticism whenever it is not too dangerous. He does not even criticise Francis, absurdly pretending that Francis is not behind all this. It is still a criticism from a fairly safe place, from a 90 years old who should have much more pressing worries.

Summa summarum: thanks, Your Grace.

But not good enough.