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Is Cardinal Burke Lying?

According to Dictionary.com, the definition of the word "lying" as a noun is "the telling of lies, or false statements; untruthfulness," whereas as a adjective it means "telling or containing lies, deliberately untruthful; deceitful; false."

It appears that Cardinal Raymond Burke may be lying in the sense of "telling... false statements." Only Burke can tells us if he is "deliberately [being] untruthful."

Cardinal Burke in his recent interview with the New York Times the newspaper asked him to explain his implications of Francis possibly backing heresy in the Amazon Synod working document, stating:

"You're effectively implying that the pope would be leading a schism?"

Burke responded: "Yes."

The Times then asked: "Isn't that a deep contradiction of how Catholics think about the office of the papacy?"

Burke replied:

"Of course. Exactly. It's a total contradiction. I pray that this wouldn't happen. And to be honest with you, I don't know how to address such a situation. As far as I see, there's no mechanism in the universal law of the church to deal with such a situation."
(New York Times, "Cardinal Burke: I'm called the Enemy of the Pope, which I am Not," November 9, 2019)

As far as I can see, Cardinal Burke in that paragraph made a "false statement" because in an 2016 interview with the Catholic World Report website in responding to questions he apparently said exactly the opposite:

"CWR: Can the pope legitimately be declared in schism or hersey?"

"Cardinal Burke: 'If a Pope would formally profess heresy he would cease, by that act, to be the Pope. It's automatic. And so, that could happen... '"

"... CWR: Who is competent to declare him to be in heresy?"

"Cardinal Burke: 'It would have to be members of the College of Cardinals.'"
(Catholic World Report, "No, I am not saying that Pope Francis is in heresy," December 19, 2016)

Sadly, it is almost impossible to believe that Burke could say "there's no mechanism in the universal law of the church to deal with such a situation."

As the Catholic World Report interview shows, he knows the teachings of the Doctors of the Church and some of the greatest theologians of the Church summed up by Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales:

"The Pope.. when he is explicitly a heretic... the Church must either deprive him or as some say declare him deprived of his Apostlic See."
(The Catholic Controversy by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)

If Cardinal Burke or anyone else can show me that I am wrong in the above piece I will be happy to delete this post and apologize. But, I cannot honestly see where I am wrong.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.




Comments

TLM said…
That's the line that stunned me: "There is no mechanism".....it seems like word salad to me. He seems to be putting a spin on things that can and cannot be done according to the 'lay of the land' so to speak. Although, this said, there are some who claim that things are going on 'behind the scenes' that they are not privy to speak about, so...we may not be aware of 'plans in the making'. It has to be a very precarious situation seeing as though Francis and clan are tied to the hip of the globalists. I compare to an octopus with many tentacles...the Institutional Church at this point is absolutely one of those tentacles. It's much, much bigger than 'just the Church'. They're working on the 'One World Order' together. They're a 'team', it's very obvious. Just my observation...
Fr. VF said…
Those of us who were children at the end of Vatican II grew up accustomed to there being two "parties" in the Church--the "liberals" and "conservatives."

It is now clear that the "conservatives" were liberals, and the "liberals" were Satanists. They were running the Church from 1958 at the very latest. They were powerful enough to get rid of Sr. Lucy in 1959 and suppress the Third Secret--which almost certainly incriminated them and condemned the coming council and new Mass.
S said…
Francis Pope? Nope. Ratzinger out flanked these one world order demons. The future of the church is here, the 3rd secret is out the rear window.
Aqua said…
When we personally see another person commit a crime, a murder perhaps, we don’t need a Court to tell us what we saw. “This guy shot that guy and that guy is now dead”.

The person who pulled the trigger shall not be strung up by that witness or that mob. The witness must, however, apprehend (somehow) the murderer for trial. *Suspect* will have his day. He will he represented before the Bar. Official judgment will one day be proclaimed.

But the suspect has to be taken off the street and placed in jail. Immediately. We saw the crime. Of that there is no doubt.

The witnesses don’t dispense judgement. We remand the *suspect* to *proper authorities* to do their job according to Law, under Oath, before God.

The spiritual crime originally occurred at the calling of the Conclave while a valid Pope still lived and had not properly, fully resigned his Office. The spiritual crime (worse than murder because it blasphemes God and ultimately murders souls) is the alteration of God’s Cornerstone, the Papal Office which is not ours to change, alter, “expand”. All the other crimes that have occurred since are the result of the “perp” still walking the streets free as a bird.

Cardinal Burke: do your duty!
MEwbank said…
Some have presumed in recent years to allege that both Francisco Suarez and St. Robert Bellarmine were wrong in what each said about the deposition of a heretical pope.

Assuming that one discerns 'formal' heresy and not just 'material' heresy in a pope, Suarez insisted that he could not be truly judged a heretic until proper authorities (say, the bishops or a preponderance of hierarchs) judged him to be so.

Since Suarez tended to focus upon matters as a jurist, his 'legalism' here is understandable.

St. Robert Bellarmine, in contrast, insisted that, even though it is improbable that Divine Providence would permit a pope to fall into 'formal' heresy, if such were to occur he would 'ipso facto' be deposed and any declaration of such would merely confirm formally what already was.

Bellarmine reasons more comprehensively as a true and profound moral theologian.

It is an unfortunate fact that most all hierarchs in the Church for a long time have only taken advanced studies in Canon Law, and so they tend to find shelter in legalist or juridical interpretations of scenarios.

We have few, if any, profound and true theologians among the hierarchy.

An exception would be Pope (so-called) 'Emeritus' Benedict xvi.

So, here we are with a majority of rather cowardly hierarchs, a significant portion being truly Modernist, quite a number being rather unintelligent, and some, like Cardinal Burke, who is intelligent yet who takes refuge in the inability of a mainly juridical focus to confront the gravity of what needs to be confronted.

Thus, the implosion of the institutional Church continues virtually uncontested.

But we know this will not continue indefinitely, no matter how dismal things may become before it is corrected.

Fred Martinez said…
Yes. God is in control.
Anonymous said…
NYT: "You're effectively implying that the pope would be leading a schism?"
Burke: "Yes."
NYT: "Isn't that a deep contradiction of how Catholics think about the office of the papacy?"
Burke: "Of course. Exactly. It's a total contradiction."

- - -

One of the lessons of logic is that, if your assumption leads to an absurdity, then the assumption is false (it's a principle we see at work in the form of argument known as reductio ad absurdum).

Now the cardinal sees that his belief about the Pope has led him to an absurdity: "It's a total contradiction," he says.

So, just by reason of logic, we see that he now has to change course and deny that "the Pope would be leading a schism," which means he needs to come to believe either:

A) that the man presumed to be Pope is in fact the Pope but would not in fact be leading a schism, or

B) that the man presumed to be Pope is not in fact the Pope.

Believing A or B is cause for denying that "the Pope would be leading a schism." Regardless, Burke's admission that his current view entails a contradiction is reason alone for him to change his beliefs. The admission, if he's being serious, creates an intellectual duty for him to make this change. It would be irrational of him not to.
Laramie Hirsch said…
"I'm Cardinal Burke. I'm a cardinal. Gollee, gee. I don't know how to deal with schismatics or heretics. Yet, I'm a man with authority in the Church. Gollee, I just can't do anything. I simply don't know the mechanisms."
lynn said…
As Tonto use to say to the Lone Ranger....white man speak with forked tongue. "Catholic" Duplicity is an invention of the jesuits and the jesuits have been running the show for 500 years. A very deep look needs to be undertaken to investigate the origins, history and goals of the jesuits. They weren't kicked out of 89 countries because they were devout, humble lovers of the Holy Trinity and Holy Tradition.
MEwbank said…
I'm going to show my age, but I knew many pre-Vatican ii Jesuits who were incredibly brilliant and orthodox.

As for centuries past, they were persecuted often because they opposed Masonic plots and other Enlightenment movements towards secularism.

But certain individuals, particularly in the twentieth-century, definitely betrayed their original charism.

And Bergoglio, like so many others who presently pretend to merit affiliation with the Societas Iesu, in no way ever received the formation Jesuits were given in eras past.
thetimman said…
The money phrase is, “in the universal law of the church”. He knows what the mechanism is. It is not in positive canon law. The ques5ion that remains is why? Why is he using this mental reservation? We don’t know, but he no doubt does. I pray he has a sufficient reason.
Fred Martinez said…
Please read Canon 1364.
Alexis Bugnolo said…
Mechanism. I doubt the word is found in any book of canon law.
MEwbank said…
Yes, Brother Alexis, that is a strikingly shallow term, 'mechanism,' and assuredly it does not appear in any book of canon law.

Canon Law refers to 'normae,''ius matrimoniale,' 'ius poenale,' 'de rebus,' 'de religiosis,' and 'de personis.'

The closest cognate one might find to Cardinal Burke's rather clumsy metaphor is 'de processibus,' but the execution of these falls to persons.

The retreat into such vague metaphors to avoid responsibility and accountability is yet another symptom of ecclesial culture that has been established during the last fifty plus years or so.


fatty said…
Cdl. Burke and a minority of bishops are going to throw Francis out of office? The majority of Cardinals will just sit back and allow it?

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