Cardinal Burke warns about watered-down marriage talk

Friday, September 18th, 2015

American Cardinal Raymond Burke has warned about watering down the language around unions outside marriage.

Addressing students at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio earlier this month, Cardinal Burke discussed attacks on family life and the Church’s response.

He said students must be wary of abandoning natural law and watering down faith and tradition in order to make certain practices acceptable.

“Some have gone too far to assert that the Church cannot speak of the natural law, intrinsically evil acts, irregular unions, and so forth.

“Their point is that the language itself already makes the culture hostile.

“However, doing so, the Church gives the impression of wanting to draw near to the culture, but without a clear identity of her own self and of what she has to say to the culture.”

The cardinal urged students to have the strength to listen to and engage in the cultural debate of marriage, but not to forsake their identity in the name of tolerance.

He encouraged students to carry out all dialogue with honour and respect.

“According to divine wisdom, the Church must always speak the truth with love.

“Yes, the Church should go to the peripheries of today’s culture, but always secure in her identity, manifesting the greatest compassion which necessarily involves respect for the truth of the current situation which many times is marked by confusion and error regarding the most fundamental truths of human life and its cradle which is the family.”

Cardinal Burke also said: “In the present moment, when the attacks on matrimony and on the family even within the Church seem the most ferocious, it is the Church who must show to the whole of society the truth in all its richness and, therefore, the beauty and the goodness of marriage and the family.”

Some Italian bishops have reportedly barred Cardinal Burke from speaking in their dioceses.

There have also been claims that he would be supportive of a schism should the outcomes of the upcoming synod on the family be contrary to his convictions.

Cardinal Burke has previously rejected such accusations.

Sources