By DON FIER (The Wanderer)
Part 3
(Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, recently traveled from Rome to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wis., a magnificent place of worship which he founded and dedicated.
(His Eminence graciously granted an extensive interview to The Wanderer during which he shared his insights on a variety of topics, including the recently concluded Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family and his recommendations for how we should contend with the uncertainty and confusion that is currently prevalent among the clerical and lay faithful.
(This is the last installment of our three-part interview with Cardinal Burke.)
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Q. Do you have any words for faithful priests who find themselves discouraged by the current ecclesiastical atmosphere of doctrinal confusion and subversion?
Also, what about lay people? If faithful members of the laity find themselves in parishes (or dioceses) where aberrant practices contrary to authentic Church teaching are taking place, what is the proper response?
To whom does the laity turn if those in leadership positions in the magisterial office of the Church espouse pastoral practices that are in opposition to her unchangeable doctrine?
A. I hear this from many good priests; even bishops talk to me about the difficulty of dealing with confusion when they present the Church’s teaching. They are told they are not in step with the current practice of the Church or even that they are against the Pope.
One archbishop said to me, “How is it that those of us who teach what the Church has always taught are now called enemies of the Pope by the media and others?”
My response is this: “We know what the Church teaches. It is memorialized in the Catechism of the Catholic Church; it is in the magisterial statements with regard to marriage and family. Go to Familiaris Consortio, go to Casti Connubii, go to Humanae Vitae! We know what the Church teaches and we hold firm to that.”