Posted on 09/05/2014 3:02:02 PM PDT by NYer
Cardinal Raymond Burke, head of the Vatican’s highest court – the Apostolic Signatura – has given a lengthy televised interview in which he decisively rectifies the false notions about Pope Francis’ “Who am I to judge” quote that has been used frequently to suggest a change in Church teaching on the matter of homosexuality.
Host Thomas McKenna of Catholic Action Insight questioned Cardinal Burke about instances where people must make judgments in light of Pope Francis’ “Who am I to judge” phrase.
“We have to judge acts, we have to,” Cardinal Burke replied. “All day long we make judgments with regards to certain acts; this is what the natural law is: to choose good and to avoid evil.”
Remarks begin at 32:00.
The Vatican cardinal added that while we can judge acts as gravely sinful we can’t say that a particular person is in grave sin, since “perhaps you are committing them without even knowing that they are gravely sinful, or perhaps you are committing them without fully consenting, who knows?”
“That kind of judgment is a part, but the acts themselves we have to judge, we couldn’t live a good and moral life otherwise,” he added.
McKenna followed up by noting that it would be wrong to interpret the pope’s phrase to indicate support for homosexual “marriage,” and Burke agreed.
The cardinal then addressed the hot button topic of tolerance and intolerance at the heart of the debate.
“I’m not intolerant of people of same-sex attraction,” he said. “I have great compassion for them and especially in our society today where many young people are led into the same-sex activity where they might not have been in the past because of complete relaxation of morals and a corruption.”
“I have great compassion for them but that compassion means that I want them to know the truth to avoid sinful acts for the sake of their own good for their own salvation and so you try to help the person,” he added. “Now that today isn’t well received by an aggressive homosexual agenda but that doesn’t mean that it’s not the right approach to take.”
Cardinal Burke warned that should we remain silent due to pressure from the aggressive homosexual agenda, we would be “presiding over the destruction of our society.”
For Cardinal Burke the approach is not only theoretical but also practical. He related that after a confirmation Mass a mother approached him angrily accusing him of calling her daughter evil. When he asked to what she was referring she spoke of columns he wrote in the diocesan paper about the traditional definition of marriage. Her daughter, she said, was “married” to another woman.
Cardinal Burke relates his response to the angry mother: “’No’, I said, ‘the acts which your daughter is committing are evil. Your daughter is not evil, but she needs to come to understand the truth about her situation.’”
The head of the Apostolic Signatura said there is much misunderstanding about the matter today “and sadly it leads to a lot of good people not doing what they should do, to help someone who is suffering in this condition.”
Ping!
Burke has Cardinal Dolan’s sad number. The Church is cracking, but it must.
God governs the extent of the fissure.
bkmk
“Who am I to judge”
Seriously, what a stupid thing to say—especially for the Pope (of all people).
If one chooses to live, then life is the standard of evalutation of every act or life style. Homosexual lifestyle shortens life span and so is evil.
The Church is being sifted like St. Peter from within, but I say, where else would the devil rather play? Jesus said of the end times, “Will there be anyone left on earth with faith”.
LOL! Good summary!
Excellent response!
Yes, an excellent response.
those secularists, leftists, and atheists who can say “Do not judge” do NOT understand that the “judgement” referred to is the fate of one’s soul. Only God can make that judgement, but we are commanded to evaluate the actions of ourselves and others as to good and evil and to inform those doing evil that they are doing so. In that we are not judging the fate of their soul, but telling them whether their path is good or evil.
It’s interesting, however, that in the first part of that video where Cardinal Burke criticizes Kasper, he never mentions that Francis agrees with Kasper.
Judge the motive.
“ya got Pope Francis straddling both sides like the St. Louis Arch”
In my experience a leftist is a leftist first, before anything else.
Francis will change nothing. He’s a Catholic. He’s anti-abortion, pro-real marriage, and having no women priests, how can you call Francis a leftist? His views are the same as Benedict and JP2 before him. He just talks to much and never clarifies anything. But nothing will change on Catholic social doctrine that was established by Christ 2,000 years ago.
“Francis will change nothing.”
At least some priests expect him to allow them to get away with a lot.
NKP_Vet, Francis does great harm with his so-called off-the-cuff confusing and thoughtless remarks. The doctrine of the Church will not change, but many of Francis’s acts and statements undermine it.
We call Francis a leftist because he announced at the beginning of his pontificate that he wants a church of the poor for the poor. This is reminiscent of “Christian Communists” Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day’s claim that the aim of Christianity is “to make the rich poor and the poor holy.” None of these objectives are in Scripture.
Francis’s positive view of socialism calls to mind Day’s endorsement and glorification of Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Francis has attacked “unbridled capitalism,” the free market, and “the tyranny of money.” Adam Shaw of Fox News wrote on December 4, 2013:
“Apart from the fact that there is no major nation practicing unfettered capitalism (like Obama, Francis loves attacking straw men) there is more real tyranny in socialist cesspools like Francis’ home of Argentina than in places where capitalism is predominant.
“In the document [Evangelii Gaudium] he rejects the free market and calls for governments to overhaul financial systems so they attack inequality. In doing so he shows himself painfully misguided on economics, failing to see that free markets have consistently lifted the poor out of poverty, while socialism merely entrenches them in it, or kills them outright.” (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/04/pope-francis-is-catholic-churchs-obama-god-help-us/)
“Seriously, what a stupid thing to say—especially for the Pope (of all people).”
Maybe God gave us such a pope because we didn’t respond when He gave us Benedict XVI.
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