If Pope Won’t Clarify “Serious Error” . . . Burke Says Cardinals Must Make “Formal Act Of Correction”
By PATRICK B. CRAINE
(Wanderer President’s Note: By all accounts, the action of the four cardinals who submitted a letter regarding concerns about Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia constitutes a major event in this critical time for our Church. These cardinals should be applauded and supported with our prayers for their courageous efforts to seek clarity in their defense and protection of Catholic teaching. These concerns were presented to the Holy Father in a most charitable and respectful document.
(The matter was initially presented privately and, after receiving no response, it is now being presented publicly, conforming to the norms of the Church as to not cause scandal. This follows many other attempts of expressions of concern and pleas for clarification from other members of the clergy, and most recently a plea from a group of over 45 well-known Catholic scholars for similar clarity in Amoris Laetitia.
(This latest request from these four cardinals begs for an answer. The clergy and laity deserve to have an answer. The Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ, cannot be a source of confusion. There is no room for obfuscation and ambiguity in the teachings of Christ. That is part of the uniqueness and the attraction of the Catholic Church, its clear and concise presentation of Christ’s teaching. Silence is not an option here. We must pray for the Holy Father and these four cardinals and a Church which hangs in the balance.
(Please see an interview by Thomas McKenna with Raymond Cardinal Burke on p. 4B of this week’s issue. Also, we direct our readers’ attention to the petition to the Pope that can be signed at www.lifesitenews.com — Joseph Matt, President, The Wanderer.)
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ROME (LifeSiteNews) — After joining a group of four cardinals in releasing a call for Pope Francis to clarify grave errors in his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Raymond Cardinal Burke has now indicated that the cardinals are contemplating a “formal correction” should the Pope fail to address their concerns.
The cardinals had written to the Pope with their concerns on September 19, but after failing to receive a response for nearly two months, they released the letter publicly on Monday morning, November 14.
Now, in an interview with the National Catholic Register’s Edward Pentin, Burke discusses the next steps should the Pope fail to address the cardinals’ concerns. Here is Pentin’s question and the cardinal’s response:
“Q. What happens if the Holy Father does not respond to your act of justice and charity and fails to give the clarification of the Church’s teaching that you hope to achieve?
“A. Then we would have to address that situation. There is, in the Tradition of the Church, the practice of correction of the Roman Pontiff. It is something that is clearly quite rare. But if there is no response to these questions, then I would say that it would be a question of taking a formal act of correction of a serious error.”
Burke goes on to insist that in a case of conflict between the Pope and Church Tradition, the Tradition is binding. “Ecclesial authority exists only in service of the Tradition,” Burke explains. “I think of that passage of St. Paul in the [Letter to the] Galatians (1:8), that if ‘even an angel should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema’.”
Historically, in the rare cases where Popes have taught heresy, Burke explains, “It is the duty . . . , and historically it has happened, of cardinals and bishops to make clear that the Pope is teaching error and to ask him to correct it.”
The September 19 letter, signed by Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner, asked the Pope five short questions which call for “yes or no” answers that would immediately clarify the meaning of the confusion-plagued document on precisely those points where theologians, priests, and even bishops have offered contradicting interpretations.
In the interview, Burke emphasizes that the cardinals have sought to act for “the good of the Church,” which, he says, “is suffering from a tremendous confusion” on the points they have raised especially. He notes, for example, that priests in different dioceses are being given contradictory directions on how to handle the question of access to Communion for those in adulterous unions.
“We, as cardinals, judged it our responsibility to request a clarification with regard to these questions, in order to put an end to this spread of confusion that is actually leading people into error,” he says.
“For us to remain silent about these fundamental doubts, which have arisen as a result of the text of Amoris Laetitia, would, on our part, be a grave lack of charity toward the Pope and a grave lack in fulfilling the duties of our own office in the Church,” he adds.
