Sanctifying Office

The Liturgy

“The liturgy is the highest and most perfect expression of our life in Christ and in the Church,” Cardinal Raymond Burke said in a 2017 interview. He is convinced that “the crisis in the life of the Church is principally a crisis of the liturgy.” More particularly, “the aspect [of the liturgy] most in crisis is sacrality itself, the transcendence of the liturgical act, the encounter of heaven and earth and the action of Christ himself, through the priest who offers the Eucharistic Sacrifice.” The danger to be avoided, according to Burke, is “anthropocentrism, a concept of the liturgy . . . as a creation (or invention) of our own.”

His book Divine Love Made Flesh: The Holy Eucharist as the Sacrament of Charity is the fruit of the weekly instructions that he gave through diocesan newspapers, subsequently published in Italian, Polish, French, Croatian, and Portuguese. Cardinal Burke personally presided over book-launching tours in Italy, England, France, Croatia, Poland, Brazil, and Portugal. During these international trips, the programs were packed to standing room only, with many young people attending.

Devotion to Our Lady

Burke has often spoken of his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and says he was inspired by this devotion to build a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The classical structure was built in the tradition of pilgrimage churches, high in the hills outside a city, at a cost of $25 million. The cardinal said that he considered the shrine, completed in 2008, to be “one of the most important works that Our Lord has asked me to undertake. The initial inspiration was a response to a situation which I saw, first as priest, then as Bishop. The situation is a hunger to know God, and to love Him, a hunger to which Our Blessed Mother responds in a particular way, leading us to the only place where that hunger can be satisfied.” The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the center for the Marian Catechist Apostolate, founded by the Servant of God Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., and established by Burke as a Public Association of the Faithful of the Diocese. Since 2000, Cardinal Burke has served as episcopal moderator and international director for the Marian Catechist Apostolate.

In response to what he called the “darkness of our age,” at the end of February 2024 Cardinal Burke invited Catholics to pray a nine-month novena from March 12 until the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12, 2024. Recalling St. Juan Diego, to whom Christ’s mother appeared under the name of Our Lady of Guadalupe in present-day Mexico in 1531, Cardinal Burke invited “all Catholics, especially those in the Americas” to ask for the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe for her “maternal care and protection.”

Promotion and Defense of the Traditional Liturgy

Cardinal Burke promoted the careful implementation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007) with a view to accomplishing the ends proposed by Pope Benedict XVI. Connected to his desire to promote a worthy celebration of the liturgy, the cardinal established the Institute of Sacred Music in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. The new institute was established, the cardinal explained, “to assist me in providing a fuller cultivation of Sacred Music for the celebration of the complete Roman Rite.” After coming to reside in Rome, Cardinal Burke continued to support efforts to promote traditional liturgy. He was invited by laypeople worldwide to give many spiritual conferences and celebrate the Mass in the Extraordinary Form. Having experienced the “great harm” caused by liturgical abuses over the years, the cardinal says he has “always tried to do whatever is indicated in the liturgical books.”

Cardinal Burke enthusiastically supported the liturgical reforms proposed by Robert Cardinal Sarah in 2017 — namely, a call for the priest to face God (ad orientem) during Mass and for the faithful to receive Christ in the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling (see Cardinal Sarah’s profile for more on this initiative). These should take priority, Cardinal Burke said. On another occasion, he lamented the abandonment of “Gregorian Chant the music proper to the Church, and also the organ, which as the [Second Vatican] Council says, is the instrument most adapted to divine worship.” He considers the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo forms of the Roman Rite to be equally valid.

Shortly after the publication of Traditionis Custodes on July 16, 2021, Cardinal Burke issued a lengthy 19-point statement describing the restrictions of the Pope’s motu proprio on the traditional liturgy as “severe and revolutionary” and generating “a profound distress and even sense of confusion and abandonment.” He questioned Francis’ authority to abrogate Summorum Pontificum and restrict the traditional liturgy, and called for the results of a survey of bishops, on which Francis said Traditionis Custodes was based, to be made public. In 2022 comments he called the papal decree, and later guidelines issued by the Dicastery for Divine Worship, “totally confusing and divisive.” He pointed out that the decree was published without consultation and so breached rules of canon law, and that the dicastery had issued guidelines also without adequate consultation and by taking on competencies that belonged to the diocesan bishop.

Despite criticism from some quarters of the Church, Cardinal Burke willingly adopts the liturgical vestments of the traditional form of the Roman rite, such as the cappa magna, a voluminous red vestment with a long train. He stresses that such vesture has nothing to do with personal tastes or proclivities of the cardinal or bishop, or of his self-aggrandizement, but are meant to draw the faithful’s attention “to the divine nature of action, that it is Christ, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father, Who, through the ministry of the priest in the Sacred Liturgy, is acting to heal and sanctify us.” He says the “fact that beautiful cloth and lace is employed in the vesture is an expression of the Church’s faith that, in the Sacred Liturgy, heaven really comes to earth.”

Promoter of Vocations

Cardinal Burke has been an active promotor and effective attractor of vocations. As bishop of La Crosse, he established the Holy Cross Seminary House of Formation in 1996 for high-school-aged boys and the Mater Redemptoris Convent and House of Formation in 2000 for high-school-aged girls. Burke also invited the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest to run a parish, their first in the United States. In 2002, he enabled the foundation of the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem, an Augustinian institute dedicated to promoting traditional liturgy. He also greatly supported the local diocesan seminary, including the custom that, every day after lunch, a seminarian would join him at his residence for a long walk, during which they would discuss anything the seminarian wanted, including spiritual direction. Under Cardinal Burke’s direction, there was an increase in the number of seminarians for the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, so much so that plans were in place to expand the seminary but were postponed once he was called to Rome.

Cardinal Burke is a devotee of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, having developed a special friendship with the saint’s husband and family and actively promoted the saint’s life and charism. As bishop of La Crosse and later archbishop of Saint Louis, Burke encountered many couples who sought his counsel because they were not able to conceive. He began promoting St. Gianna as a recourse, giving blessings with a relic and promoting novenas and other devotions to the saint. As a result of the large number of the couples able to conceive, he established an annual “Gianna Baby” Mass to recognize the many babies conceived through St. Gianna’s intercession.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Personal Piety

In every parish of the Diocese of La Crosse, in particular during 2001, Cardinal Burke promoted the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Copies of an icon of the Sacred Heart were made available throughout the diocese to create a sense of unity between the parishes and the family homes. Pastors and laity were given extensive doctrinal and practical instruction in preparation for the Enthronement at the cathedral. In the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, Cardinal Burke created and installed a shrine to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the cathedral basilica of Saint Louis, during which he solemnly consecrated the archdiocese to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Since coming to reside in Rome, Cardinal Burke has continued to support efforts to promote traditional liturgy. He has been invited by laypeople worldwide to give many spiritual conferences and celebrate the Mass in the traditional form.

The cardinal fervently prays for all who ask him, and keeps in his pocket batches of prayer cards, which he goes through each day, asking for the intercession of whichever patron saint is relevant to a particular need.

Governing Office

La Crosse

Then-Bishop Burke served as Ordinary of La Crosse from 1994 to 2003. His diocese included two hundred thousand persons spread across fifteen thousand square miles of mostly farmland. During his tenure, he “consolidated the Catholic schools of seven cities in his diocese into unified school systems,” closing a number of schools. As part of the reform, Burke “dramatically raised the wages of many teachers by standardizing salaries,” and he also standardized tuition and curricula. Also notably, then-Bishop Burke ordered Catholics of his diocese not to participate in a fundraising drive to combat hunger because it was run by an organization that pays for contraception in developing countries.

Catholic Lawmakers and Abortion

Cardinal Burke has been a persistent defender of the Eucharist, especially against abuse of the Blessed Sacrament by pro-abortion Catholic politicians. As bishop of La Crosse, Cardinal Burke convoked a diocesan synod (June 11-14, 2000) so that “the whole Body of Christ in the Diocese may be more fully equipped to cooperate with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in carrying out the work of the New Evangelization at the sunset of the Second Christian Millennium and the dawn of the Third Christian Millennium.”

Appointed archbishop of Saint Louis in December 2003, Burke continued to make news by speaking out in defense of the Faith. In February 2004, applying a policy he had first implemented in La Crosse, he forbade Catholic presidential candidate and abortion supporter John Kerry from receiving Communion while campaigning in the archdiocese. Drawing on canon law and a 1998 document of the U.S. bishops, he said in a statement that, as his “fundamental responsibility” as a bishop was to safeguard and promote respect for human life, it was his duty “to explain, persuade, correct and admonish those in leadership positions who contradict the Gospel of life through their action and policies.” He called on all Catholic legislators of his diocese to uphold the inviolable dignity of all human life.

Following the controversy, a number of prelates and other clerics asked Burke if he could prepare a study addressing the Church’s position and history on the issue. Burke complied and his study was published in the Periodica de Re Canonica of the Pontifical Gregorian University, titled “The Discipline regarding the Denial of Holy Communion to Those Obstinately Persevering in Manifest Grave Sin.” Using documented examples from Church history and doctrine, the study clearly outlines the perennial history of this practice. It has never been refuted.

In 2020, Burke defended a priest who denied Holy Communion to Joe Biden, a Catholic Democratic presidential contender who openly supported abortion and other policies not in line with Church teaching. “What the priest did in South Carolina was right and just — would that more priests would act in a similar manner!” Burke said. He said he could name eighty to one hundred Catholic legislators who regularly vote in favor of abortion and called it a “major scandal.” In the same interview, the cardinal also commended a priest for denying Holy Communion to a lesbian judge in Michigan who was “married” to her female partner. At the same time, Burke criticized pro-LGBT Jesuit Fr. James Martin for calling the priest’s actions “discrimination.” The cardinal said, “It is clear to me that Father Martin does not teach the Catholic Faith in these matters.”

In 2023, Cardinal Burke wrote a book Respecting the Body and Blood of the Lord: When Holy Communion Should Be Denied in which he examined the history and significance of the Catholic Church’s long-held teaching regarding who is sufficiently worthy, and who is not, to receive Holy Communion, especially with regards to those in public life. He also recalled how the Church’s teaching on the proper reception of the Eucharist is an act of pastoral charity for the faithful, individually and for one’s neighbor. That same year, the cardinal mailed a version of the book to tens of thousands of clergy with firm but clear instructions on when to deny someone Holy Communion.  In a 2023 interview with the National Catholic Register, Cardinal Burke lamented poor catechesis which has led many Catholic to believe they are sufficiently worthy to receive Holy Communion when, in fact, they are not and thereby place their soul in danger.

Parish Governance and Church Closures

In 2004, Burke sought to bring a parish with an irregular governance arrangement back into conformity with canon-law norms. Making no headway, he transferred the parish’s priests and ministry elsewhere. After publishing a warning, Burke issued an interdict against the lay board. When the lay board proceeded to hire a priest from another diocese, that priest’s bishop suspended him, and then-Archbishop Burke declared the priest and lay board members guilty of schism and therefore automatically excommunicated.Burke canonically closed the parish, formally separating it from the Catholic Church.

Later asked about how to approach church closures, Burke emphasized the importance of following church procedures and having a just reason for the closures. He said that reason should be determined based on a review of all relevant factual information and should be well documented. Regarding closures for lack of resources, the cardinal noted that, although “the existence of churches depends on the generosity of the laity . . . the bishop and the priests have to provide as best they can for the spiritual needs of the parishioners with the material goods that they have available.”

Handling Diocesan Scandals

In 2008, Archbishop Burke ordered the interdiction of Louise Lears, a Sister of Charity in his archdiocese. In November 2007, Sr. Lears had participated in the ordination of two women as “Roman Catholic Womenpriests.”

Following the ceremony, the archbishop informed those responsible that they had incurred excommunication and opened a canonical process against Sr. Lears.

In 2007, Archbishop Burke said that out of pastoral necessity he had to oppose a benefit concert for a local Catholic hospital because it featured singer Sheryl Crow, a well-known abortion activist. He said her appearance would be “an affront to the identity and mission of the medical center, dedicated as it is to the service of life and Christ’s healing mission.”

The cardinal has also expressed strong reservations about the Legionaries of Christ after the scandals of its abusive founder Father Marcial Maciel came to public attention in the late 2000s. He believes the Order should have been re-founded.

Apostolic Signatura

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI named Cardinal Burke prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest court. This appointment was the culmination of a career in canon law that began with doctoral studies — and an influential doctoral dissertation — at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, followed by a position as the first American defender of the bond at the Signatura, and then an appointment on the same tribunal.

Two years after his judicial appointment, Pope Benedict named Raymond Burke a cardinal. When Pope Francis came into office, he left Burke in his position until the end of the usual five-year term. Although the pope did not renew Burke’s prefecture in 2014, no public commentary suggested that the nonrenewal resulted from incompetence. Instead, performance-specific commentary tended to be positive, as when a canon lawyer praised the cardinal for his “involvement in the publication of . . . Signatura decisions on a variety of issues,” which “has been very important in providing canon lawyers with models for canonical jurisprudence in these situations.” The pope’s re-nomination of Burke to membership (but not leadership) of the Signatura in 2017 is significant. As John Allen’s Crux judged the matter: “Few have ever disputed [Burke’s] abilities as an expert on canon law.”

Guam Case, Sexual Abuse Crisis

In February 2017, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith requested that Cardinal Burke preside over a five-judge tribunal hearing the penal case of Anthony Apuron, archbishop of Agaña (Guam). Allegations that Archbishop Apuron committed sexual abuse of altar servers in the 1970s had led to civil lawsuits and considerable controversy in Guam. In March 2018, the tribunal issued a verdict finding Apuron “guilty of certain of the accusations” and sentenced him to removal from office and prohibition from living in Guam. The tribunal’s words, the lack of a penalty of laicization, and reports from sources close to Apuron suggest that the archbishop was not convicted of all charges. Still, Apuron lodged an appeal, which Pope Francis personally administered. The second tribunal upheld the first tribunal’s verdict, definitively finding Apuron “guilty of delicts against the Sixth Commandment with minors” and modifying the sentence only to add that Apuron shall not live in Guam “even temporarily” and shall not display episcopal insignia.

Judicial positions aside, Cardinal Burke understands that the office of cardinal includes the duty “in certain situations . . . to say what he truly thinks to the Pope.” Thus, beyond presiding over a canonical trial of sexual abuse allegations, he has also shared views on the general issue, which he deems “possibly one of the worst crises that [the Catholic Church in the U.S. has] ever experienced.”Clericalism is an insufficient explanation of clerical sexual sin: “It would be clericalism that would protect or even promote priests who are doing evil things.” In his experience, the evil acts themselves are not “done through some kind of clerical mentality.” Rather, clerics “simply had an amoral weakness, and it wasn’t properly corrected, and they didn’t use the proper spiritual means to remain chaste and perfectly continent.” The central cause of the crisis, in the cardinal’s view, is the Church’s failure to make clear that “homosexual acts are evil . . . always and everywhere.” To move forward, “there needs to be an open recognition that we have a very grave problem of a homosexual culture in the Church, especially among the clergy and the hierarchy, that needs to be addressed honestly and efficaciously.” ¹Michael W. Chapman, “Cardinal Burke: ‘We Have a Very Grave Problem of a Homosexual Culture in the Church,’ ” CNS News, 17 August 2018. Cardinal Burke maintains that the Church should return to something like the 1917 formulation of canon law regarding clerical sexual sins; he does not think that new procedures need be implemented; rather, proper procedures are there, have been for centuries, and should be used today. “Where we discover that the appropriate action has not been taken, then . . . that bishop has to be corrected, and if the bishop has failed very grievously, then he would simply have to be removed.” That said, “it’s the responsibility of the Holy Father, not the conference of bishops, to investigate bishops.”

Synodality and Papal Power

Burke opposes limiting the power of the pope by synod or synodality. In his view, a synod is “a meeting of bishops to assist the pope to see how to teach the Faith more effectively and how to promote a more faithful Christian life in accordance with the discipline of the Church.” Burke does not oppose such synods, nor does he oppose consultation with the College of Cardinals. Indeed, he thinks the College, which has not met since 2014, should be called together more frequently so that the cardinals may advise the pope and meet each other before the next conclave. But Burke distinguishes proper synods and meetings of the College from “synodality,” which is, in his view, a term without clear meaning. It seems to him to be used “as a kind of political tool to suddenly promote ideas that weren’t even discussed in [a] synod itself,” which is “not honest.” Burke also opposes the term’s use “to suggest some kind of new church which is democratic and in which the authority of the Roman Pontiff is relativized and diminished — if not destroyed.”

In the cardinal’s view, a pope should resist or reverse the diminution of proper papal power, though it may be “licit” to call for a pope’s resignation. Indeed, “anyone can make [such a request] in the face of whatever pastor that errs greatly in the fulfillment of his office,” although “the facts need to be verified.” Thus, to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s call for Pope Francis’ resignation, Burke responded, “Each declaration must be subject to investigation, according to the Church’s time-tried procedural law.”

In Burke’s view, the Roman pontiff has “the fullness of power to safeguard and to promote the transmission of the truths of the faith, the beauty of the sacred liturgy, the goodness of her discipline, but not to govern the Church as some kind of self-made autocrat.”Burke understands papal authority and Church authority generally as founded on the authority of Jesus Christ, Holy Scripture, and Catholic tradition. ²The cardinal’s expressed view of the authority of “the word of God” as “divinely revealed,” with a reference to Dei Verbum, suggests that he accepts the inerrancy of Scripture. The mission of both Church and pope is “the salvation of souls.” Thus, although “Peter . . . [is] the principle of the unity of the Church throughout the world,” nevertheless “any act of a Pope that undermines the salvific mission of Christ in the Church, whether it be a heretical act or a sinful act in itself, is simply void from the point of view of the Petrine Office.”

In the summer of 2023, Cardinal Burke was one of five prelates to send a second dubia to Pope Francis ahead of the Synod on Synodality to take place that October. They decided to write it due to confusion that had been caused by “various declarations of highly-placed Prelates, pertaining to the celebration of the next Synod of Bishops, that are openly contrary to the constant doctrine and discipline of the Church.” Their questions pertained to whether the practice of blessing same-sex unions was in accordance with Divine Revelation and the Magisterium, whether the Synod can be the “supreme regulatory criterion” for governing the Church, whether women could be ordained to the priesthood, and whether a confession is valid if the penitent has no intention of changing their behavior. The Pope responded but in lengthy answers rather than in the customary form of “yes” and “no” replies, which the cardinals believed only further confused the issues. They therefore sent revised questions for clarification, to which the Pope did not reply.

Cardinal Burke told the National Catholic Register that the cardinals’ initiative was “in accord with the constant practice of the Church,” adding that cardinals have a “special responsibility” to make known to the Pope “serious concerns about the doctrine and discipline of the Church.”

Burke said, “What is key” is that the dubia and the reformulated dubia “concern primarily the Church’s doctrine and discipline, the salvation of souls.” The dubia, he added, were not about “taking a position against Pope Francis” but focusing on “the most grave doctrinal and disciplinary questions posed by the imminent session of the Synod of Bishops.”

In August 2023, Burke wrote a foreword to a booklet called Pandora’s Box criticizing Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality, claiming it would foster “confusion, error and division” in the Church by changing its self-understanding based on a “contemporary ideology.” Burke insisted that only Christ’s truth as handed down in Church doctrine can address the “deadly confusion and error” he believes the synod is propagating.

“Synodality and its adjective, synodal, have become slogans behind which a revolution is at work to change radically the Church’s self-understanding, in accord with a contemporary ideology which denies much of what the Church has always taught and practiced,” Cardinal Burke wrote. “It is not a purely theoretical matter, for the ideology has already, for some years, been put into practice in the Church in Germany, spreading widely confusion and error and their fruit, division — indeed schism — to the grave harm of many souls.”

Approach to Society of Saint Pius X

Cardinal Burke has said that reconciliation with the Society of Saint Pius X would “really [be] a gift for the whole Church” and that the fraternity has “the Catholic faith and the love of the sacred liturgy.”³ Francis X. Rocca, “Cardinal Burke Optimistic on Reconciliation with SSPX,” Catholic News Service, 15 June 2012. On the other hand, he has insisted that the SSPX is “in schism” and its priests remain in “de facto excommunication.” He characterized the pope’s recent indults — allowing SSPX priests to hear confessions and officiate at weddings if no other priest is available and the local bishop approves — as an “anomaly” and warned that it is not “a good sign to receive sacraments” from SSPX clergy.⁴ Christine Niles, “Cdl Burke: SSPX In Schism,” Church Militant, 2 October 2017

If there are two themes in Cardinal Burke’s exercise of governance, they are vigorous exercise of his office, as he understands it, and rigorous attention to the law. In defense of the latter in San Francisco in 2017, Burke asserted:

Canon law is not in contrast with the many works of divine grace in the Church but rather assures that the work of divine grace will be received into souls formed in accord with the mind and heart of Christ. We do not study and respect the law for its own sake but for the sake of the sacred realities which it safeguards and fosters. We serve the justice which is the minimal and irreplaceable requirement of divine love.

Order of Malta Controversy

In 2016, as patron of the Order of Malta, Cardinal Burke found himself embroiled in a controversy involving the order’s third-ranking official, Grand Chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager. Cardinal Burke’s task as patron was to promote relations between the Holy See and the Knights and to keep the Holy Father informed about spiritual and religious aspects of the order.

Cardinal Burke was present when the order’s Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, dismissed Boeselager as Grand Chancellor at a meeting on December 6, 2016, accusing him of being ultimately responsible for the distribution of contraceptives through the order’s humanitarian agency, Malteser International.

At the meeting, Cardinal Burke made it clear that distribution of contraceptives was unacceptable. Some alleged that Burke had told Boeselager that the pope had instructed him to tell him to resign, but the cardinal firmly denied this. He was nevertheless acting on views shared by Pope Francis in a confidential December 1 letter, later made public by WikiLeaks, in which the pope had told Burke he would be “very disappointed” if it transpired that such distributions had been taking place and Burke had not “intervened to end such things.”

Cardinal Burke, however, found himself in the midst of an internal war within the order, one side wishing to modernize it along more secular lines (Boeselager and his allies), and the other holding to orthodoxy and tradition (mostly professed Knights). Burke naturally aligned with the latter.⁵The dispute was also seen as a microcosm of the crisis in the Vatican and wider Church, added to which was the order’s considerable financial resources, some hidden in a shady Swiss trust, unknown to Festing, and which became apparent only around the time of the dispute.

In response to Boeselager’s dismissal, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, established a five-member commission of inquiry.⁶See Cardinal Parolin’s profile for more details on his role in the affair. Within a month of the commission’s formation, Parolin declared Boeselager innocent of all wrongdoing.⁷The audience transcription makes clear that while Boeselager claimed that the findings of the commission established by Festing were inaccurate, when challenged by Burke at the December 6, 2016, meeting to explain why he, Boeselager, had not requested corrections to the document throughout 2016 or provided materials to disprove its investigative conclusions, Boeselager had no response. This, Burke is reported to have said, did not surprise him, for had heard Boeselager himself vocalize a justification for precisely the dubious questions in practice — a justification that the commission also asserts was invoked by MI personnel in defense of the dubious practice. The pope subsequently ordered Boeselager reinstated, stripped Burke of all prerogatives and duties with respect to the order (he retained the title of patron), announced the appointment of a new papal delegate to the order, and declared that the Holy See would oversee a review of the order and guide its reorientation . In January 2017, Francis dismissed Festing.

Burke was persistently accused of exceeding his mandate and of falsely saying that the Pope instructed him to tell Boeselager to resign, accusations he always denied. The Pope’s confidential December 1 letter, revealed by WikiLeaks two years later, confirmed Burke’s account of events.

Teaching Office

Call to Holiness

Cardinal Burke embraces the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on the universal call to holiness — that every Christian, by dint of Baptism, is called to be a saint. He affirms that “divine grace which helps even the weakest and the most tried human subject to attain a heroic degree of virtue, if he or she only cooperates with divine grace.”

On the other hand, he has stated plainly that “immortality of the soul and hell” are truths and the denials of these truths are “heretical ideas.” He thinks that souls can be taught to go in the right or wrong direction — and the right way is Christ: “In Christ is realized the right order of all things, the union of heaven and earth, as God the Father intended from the beginning,” for “it is the obedience of God the Son Incarnate which reestablishes, restores, the original communion of man with God and, therefore, peace in the world.”

Importance of the Sacraments

For “visible and effective signs of our incorporation into Christ and His Church,” Burke turns to the sacraments, “in and by which the Church publicly professes and actuates her faith.” In His Eminence’s view, however, “the decisive criterion for admission to the sacraments has always been the coherence of a person’s way of life with the teachings of Jesus.” More than just “the absence of a person’s subjective culpability” is necessary. Instead, one should avoid publicly living in a state of sin and actually adhere to objective morality. Burke holds that admission to the sacraments depends, in part, on living in actual accordance with the natural law and, at a minimum, avoiding those violations that constitute mortal sin.

His convictions in this regard have led him to speak up frequently in defense of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. For example, before, during, and after the 2014 and 2015 synods on the family, Burke vehemently resisted the “Kasper Proposal” on allowing some divorced and civilly “remarried” persons engaging in sexual relations to receive Holy Communion. He insisted that allowing such an exception for people the Church considers to be living in an objective state of adultery would represent a “fundamental” break in Catholic teaching. He contributed to the 2014 book Remaining in the Truth of Christ, defending the sacrament of Marriage in light of the “Kasper Proposal” and would later be one of the four cardinals to issue the dubia, seeking clarification of Pope Francis’ 2016 Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which appeared to offer such an opening (see the section on relations with Pope Francis, below). He reaffirmed his position on the issue in 2018.

The Family and the Natural Moral Law

According to Cardinal Burke, “not to speak about the natural law is to deny reason.” In this light, he has taught emphatically that absolute moral norms “that prohibit intrinsically evil acts and that are binding without exceptions” exist. “With intrinsically evil acts,” he has further explained, “no discernment of circumstances or intentions is necessary.” These intrinsically evil acts that are never morally justified include abortion, embryo-destruction, euthanasia, contraception, cloning, and any sexual act outside of marriage (with marriage defined as “an exclusive and lifelong union of one man and one woman, which of its very nature cooperates with God in the creation of new human life”).⁸“The Church’s teaching on the intrinsic evil of procured abortion forbids the destruction of human beings from the moment of fertilization through every state of their development.” Most Reverend Raymond L. Burke, Pastoral Letter Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good (1 October 2004), 12. “It is intrinsically evil to destroy human embryos, even for some intended good. The Holy Father further reminds us that the solemn duty to protect human life extends also to ‘living human embryos and fetuses sometimes specifically “produced” for [experimentation] by in vitro fertilization either to be used as “biological material” or as providers of organs or tissues for transplants in the treatment of certain diseases.’ ” Burke, Our Civic Responsibility, 12-13. “Another intrinsic moral evil which seemingly is growing in acceptability in our society is euthanasia, ‘an action or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 2277). It is important to distinguish euthanasia from: (1) the legitimate decision ‘to forgo medical procedures which no longer correspond the real situation of the patient; and (2) the legitimate decision to use ‘various types of painkillers and sedatives for easing the patient’s pain when this involves risk of shortening life’ (Evangelium vitae, no. 65b-c).” Burke,Our Civic Responsibility, 12-13. “Human cloning, for any reason, is ‘in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union’ (Donum vitae, I, no. 6), inasmuch as it reduces procreation to a species of manufacture, and treats human life as a product of human artifice.” Burke, Our Civic Responsibility, 14. The cardinal has distinguished all of these acts from war and the death penalty, which, he taught in 2004, “can rarely be justified, [but] are not intrinsically evil.” Burke maintains that these (and other) moral principles must guide and govern social as well as individual action. In social matters, he affirms the primacy of the right to life and the family founded upon marriage: “In the long tradition of not only the Church’s thinking but also of philosophical reason . . . the fundamental question has to be the question of human life itself . . . and of its cradle, its source, in the union of man and woman in marriage.”Burke defends this prioritization in two ways. First, life and marriage are foundational social conditions on which other social conditions depend. Second, attacks on such goods, as discussed above, tend to be intrinsically evil acts, contrary to absolute negative norms. By contrast, other social questions may not involve intrinsically evil acts, but rather implicate positive moral norms, which, in the cardinal’s teaching, do not “bind without exception.”

The cardinal suggests that an initial locus for social action is the family itself. “Parents today must be especially vigilant in instructing their children in the truth about human sexuality and in safeguarding them from all of the false messages regarding human sexuality conveyed in the schools and by the communications media.” Burke has affirmed that same-sex attraction is “not right” and not to be encouraged, even while reiterating the human dignity of persons who experience such attraction and calling for compassiontoward such persons. The cardinal may not have publicly and directly addressed guidelines for admission to the seminary, but he has welcomed a “development” away from “a period of time when men who were . . . confused about their own sexual identity had entered the priesthood.” Also, he has called for a “homosexual culture” within the Church to be “purified at the root.” More broadly, Burke holds that “gender theory” is to be rejected as “an attack on [the] truth” about marriage, and he has insisted that the “twofold expression of the human person is . . . male and female.” The cardinal would have parents teach instead the Church’s tradition, which “offers a powerful model of true femininity in the Blessed Virgin Mary and in many female saints” and, “especially through the devotion to St. Joseph . . . stress[es] the manly character of the man who sacrifices his life for the sake of the home, who prepares with chivalry to defend his wife and his children and who works to provide the livelihood for the family.” ⁹Obviously, Cardinal Burke does not think that marriage is the exclusive vocation for either men or women.

Burke sees upholding and not diluting the fullness of Church doctrine as central to true Christian compassion. He also believes that all moral truth must be advanced in the public square.

Citing Christ’s example as an answer to Cain’s question, he affirms that “we are our ‘brother’s keeper.’ We are responsible for the good of all our brothers and sisters in our nation and in the world, without boundaries.” That is, “we are bound by the moral law to act with respect for the rights of others and to promote the common good.” More specifically, “we are morally bound in conscience to choose leaders at all levels of government, who will best serve the common good.” That choice should be guided by the moral priorities previously mentioned, such that, in the cardinal’s view, consideration of life and marriage must come before consideration of poverty, immigration, and the environment, important as those issues are.¹⁰See Burke, Our Civic Responsibility, 14-16.

On the particular matter of immigration, Burke has opposed separation of small children from immigrant parents and affirmed that refugees must be taken in. On the other hand, His Eminence would distinguish refugees from immigrants who migrate for “their own advancement,” and he thinks addressing the latter case involves more complex policy judgments by many nations.

Church and State

Cardinal Burke has also offered thoughts about the relationship between church and state. He holds that “Christians who do not pretend to govern the civil state by means of the Church at the same time are called to give an heroic public witness to the truth of the moral law, of the law of God.” Thus, he affirms both that “the Kingship of Christ is, by nature, universal, that is, it extends to all men, to the whole world,” and also that all persons should be free to exercise religious faith “as long as it’s not against good order.”

Cardinal Burke has said he has often drawn inspiration from the life and work of St. Thomas More, the patron saint of lawyers, statesmen, and politicians, especially in view of temptations and pressures to conform to the world. He has also often been willing to lend his support to Catholics courageously defending the Faith in the public square. Sometimes this has caused controversy, particularly on the political left,
as when he appeared to support, and then distanced himself from, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon. Such alliances, including with Italy’s rightist former deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, reflect Burke’s willingness to stand by Catholic politicians for as long as he believes they are acting coherently with the Faith and promoting the common good.

Islam

Burke has expressed serious concerns about Islam, which he does not think is simply “a religion like the Catholic faith or the Jewish faith” nor indeed a religion with “the same God” as Christianity. One particular concern for the cardinal is that when Muslims “become the majority in any country they have the duty to submit the whole population to Shariah.” In the cardinal’s eyes, “we have to insist [that] our country is not free to become a Muslim state.”

Priestly Celibacy, Women Priests

Cardinal Burke has emphasized in many public pronouncements the requirements of the priestly office. He responded to self-proclaimed ordinations of female priests as acts “in contradiction to the perennial, constant, and infallible teaching of the Catholic Church” He has taught that clerical celibacy is “something more than a discipline” because “it has to do with the example of Christ Himself,” because it has been “from the earlier centuries understood as being most fitting for [the Church’s] priests,” and because it received “very solid reaffirmation” from a world Synod of Bishops in the 1960s. As a less certain matter, the cardinal also favors exclusively male altar service to promote male engagement with the Mass and the Faith and to encourage priestly vocations. Such measures would, in his judgment, strengthen the Church.

Crisis in the Church

In a 2020 interview, Cardinal Burke lamented the internal squabbles in the Church that had heightened during Francis’ pontificate and said that at the center of such internal strife was a “fundamental misunderstanding about the Church herself and about the papacy, about the College of Bishops and Tradition.”

Strengthening the Church is much needed, in Burke’s view, because “antinomianism embedded in civil society has unfortunately infected post-[Vatican II] ecclesial life.” Not least because of “an attitude of indifference toward Church discipline, if not even hostility,” it has come about that “the reforms of ecclesial life which were hoped for by the Council fathers were . . . in a certain sense, hindered if not betrayed.” Among the damage, the cardinal believes, is apostasy as prophesied by Our Lady at Fatima: “There has been a practical apostasy from the faith with regard to all the questions involving human sexuality.”

He believes that because “the Church itself seems to be confused,” and because “one may have the feeling that the Church gives the appearance of being unwilling to obey the mandates of Our Lord,” it may be that “we have arrived at the End Times.” That is, our times “realistically seem to be apocalyptic,” and “clearly, the present situation of the world cannot continue without leading to total annihilation.”

In 2017, on the centenary of Our Lady of Fatima’s first apparition to the three shepherd children, Cardinal Burke issued a call for the Catholic faithful to “work for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

In the meantime, Burke has urged Catholics not to “worry whether these times are apocalyptic or not, but to remain faithful, generous and courageous in serving Christ in His Mystical Body, the Church.”

The cardinal has issued many statements and declarations in defense of the Church’s doctrine; for instance, in June 2019, when he co-wrote a “Declaration of Truths,” an eight-page document reaffirming the Church’s perennial teaching on a range of key doctrines, from the Eucharist and marriage to capital punishment and clerical celibacy. The document was written in response to concerns about prevailing ambiguities and contradictions during the Francis pontificate.

Cardinal Burke’s critics call him a “rigorist” for whom the Catholic community is “simply riddled through with confused souls, and there is error everywhere” and where he sees confusion, they see an “openness to new ways of expressing the faith.” In contrast, his supporters argue that he sees the Church how it really is, that he identifies the errors in the light of the gospel and the Church’s perennial teaching, and is merely upholding the truths of the Faith.

Responding to the crisis, he advises prayer for an increase in faith, study of the Faith, and fellowship with others. He encourages flight to the Blessed Virgin for her maternal intercession, to St. Joseph daily, and to St. Michael throughout the day. He requests prayers for all cardinals and particularly for the Pope, through the intercession of St. Peter. In his view, Catholics must “safeguard especially our faith in the Petrine Office and our love for the Successor of Saint Peter, Pope Francis.” As mentioned above, in response to what he called the “darkness of our age,” at the end of February 2024 Cardinal Burke invited Catholics to pray a nine-month novena from March 12 until the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12, 2024.

Use of the Media and COVID

To promote his teaching office, Cardinal Burke has begun to make use of modern media, employing a full-time spokeswoman, creating his own website to post messages, homilies, and presentations (www.cardinalburke.com), and opening a Twitter account.

During the coronavirus outbreak, Cardinal Burke used his website to issue messages of support to the faithful. He urged churches and chapels to stay open for prayer, noting that “without the help of God, we are indeed lost.” Reflecting on the crisis, he observed how far society is from God, that “there is no question that great evils like pestilence are an effect of original sin and of our actual sins,” but also that God will never leave us and urged the faithful to have recourse to Him, if not through the sacraments, then through prayer and spiritual communion.

The cardinal himself was taken very ill in the summer of 2021 due to the pandemic. He was close to death, placed on a ventilator for 9 days, and doctors said there was little hope he would survive. He received an outpouring of prayer and good wishes from the faithful. Recalling his experience on Raymond Arroyo’s The World Over on Jan. 20, 2022, Burke said that when he was taken off the ventilator he had “an immediate sense that the Blessed Mother had been taking care of me all the time.” He also said he had “no question” in his mind that the many prayers of the faithful saved him for “some future work the Lord” has for him to do. “It really was miraculous,” he said, adding: “We should never doubt the power of prayer.”

Burke had refused vaccination against COVID, something Pope Francis had strongly promoted despite concerns over its moral legitimacy, their safety, and questions over the ethics of vaccine mandates. “In the College of Cardinals, there are a few deniers. One of them, the poor man, contracted the virus. The irony of life,” Francis told reporters as he flew home from a trip to Slovakia in September 2021.

In response, Burke said he was not a denier and had never said people should not be vaccinated but stressed that to be vaccinated was a “personal decision and the exercise of a fundamental human right and I’m absolutely opposed to forced vaccination through these mandates.”  The Vatican had one of the world’s strictest COVID vaccine mandates and on at least one occasion after he had recovered from Covid, refused Cardinal Burke permission to enter.

Relationship with Pope Francis

Under Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Burke held numerous positions of significant influence in the Curia. Since the start of the present papacy, the cardinal’s responsibilities have decreased.¹¹Cardinal Burke has rejected claims that Pope Benedict’s resignation was invalid or incomplete or that Benedict tried to bifurcate or expand the office. According to Burke, “it would be difficult to say it’s not valid.” Not only does His Eminence doubt that Pope Benedict intended to alter the papacy, but any intent to do so would be “fantasy,” and Burke does not think that such “mistaken notions,” if held, would “redound to non-abdication of the Petrine office.” Further: “Whatever [Pope Benedict] may have theoretically thought about the papacy, the reality is what is expressed in the Church’s discipline. He withdrew his will to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, and therefore he ceased to be the Vicar of Christ on earth.” Thus, in Cardinal Burke’s view, Pope Benedict XVI ceased to be pope in 2013 — and indeed, Burke thinks, someone who is not pope should avoid the use of titles or dress that may suggest otherwise. In 2013, allegedly because of his insistence on recommending bishops faithful to the Church’s teaching, he ceased to be a member of the Congregation for Bishops. and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. In November 2014, following the October 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family and earlier rumors that Cardinal Burke would be removed as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura,Pope Francis reassigned Burke from that position to be patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta when his five-year term as prefect ended.

In 2015, Pope Francis reappointed Cardinal Burke to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

In late 2016, Cardinal Burke played an indirect role in the removal of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta’s Grand Chancellor (see above).

Pope Francis appointed a special delegate to take over the governing duties of the patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, while leaving Cardinal Burke in that office. Later in 2017, Pope Francis reappointed Cardinal Burke to the Apostolic Signatura as a member.

Amoris Laetitia

On April 8, 2016, Pope Francis published Amoris Laetitia, his apostolic exhortation on the 2014 and 2015 synods on the family. On September 19, 2016, Cardinal Burke and three other cardinals submitted to the pope formal questions, dubia, seeking clarification on five points of Amoris Laetitia, primarily to ascertain if previous teachings still applied. The main area of concern related to whether “remarried” divorcees could receive Holy Communion, but the scope of the dubia also included other questions related to the moral law.¹²Cardinal Burke had also regularly expressed his concerns about the Holy Communion for remarried divorcees issue, most notably in the book Remaining in the Truth of Christ (Ignatius Press, 2014).

After personal delivery of the letter containing their dubia to the papal residence and to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, they received “no acknowledgment” or any response to them, and so were “given to understand that there would be no response to these questions.” The four cardinals then judged that they were “obliged, in conscience as cardinals, to publish the dubia, on Nov. 14, 2016, so that the faithful would be aware of these serious questions touching upon the salvation of souls.” Burke has fervently defended these actions as carried out “according to the long-standing practice of the Church.” Immediately following the publication of the dubia, the pope removed the cardinal as a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

In June 2018, Pope Francis said in a public interview that he heard about the cardinals’ letter “from the newspapers . . . a way of doing things that is, let’s say, not ecclesial, but we all make mistakes.” The pope has yet to respond directly to the questions posed in the dubia. Cardinal Burke has suggested that, if he received no response from the Pope, he would issue a formal correction of the Pope. He has not yet taken any public action of that sort.

Archbishop Viganò

In August 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò released an eleven-page testament alleging, inter alia, that Pope Francis learned about sexual abuse by Theodore (then-Cardinal) McCarrick on June 23, 2013, but continued to cover for him and even allowed him to have more responsibilities. Of these allegations Cardinal Burke said: “The declarations made by a prelate of the authority of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò must be totally taken to heart by those responsible in the Church.” Burke has also called for further investigation of the Viganò testimony. According to Cardinal Burke, “[Archbishop Viganò’s] request for resignation is licit; anyone can make it in the face of whatever pastor that errs greatly in the fulfillment of his office, but the facts need to be verified.”

Holy See–China Relations

Burke criticized the Vatican’s September 22, 2018, provisional agreement with China regarding the appointment of Chinese bishops. According to the deal, the Vatican lifted excommunication on bishops appointed by the Chinese government without Vatican approval. Other precise details remain unclear. For example, the status of underground bishops loyal to the Vatican, the Vatican’s future relationship with Taiwan, and the appointment process for future Chinese bishops had not yet been specified. Cardinal Burke considers the agreement “absolutely unconscionable” and “a betrayal of so many confessors and martyrs who suffered for years and years and were put to death” by the Chinese Communist Party. In his view, “there is no question that the Chinese government is absolutely hostile to the Catholic faith and any Christian faith and they want to destroy it. In China the religion is China.”

Amazon Synod

In March 2020, Burke said that, although it had good aspects, he found the pope’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Querida Amazonia “troubling,” as it contained passages that “gravely contradict theological truths.” He said there was a clear agenda to keep married priests and a female diaconate on the table, despite the document appearing to reject them, and he was disturbed by the diminishment of the Pachamama controversy in the document. “We never incorporate anything into the sacred liturgy unless we know very certainly that it is coherent with the worship of God,” he said.

Before the synod, he and Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, issued an eight-page declaration warning against “six theological errors and heresies” they said were contained in the synod’s working document, and called for a forty-day period of prayer and fasting to prevent them from being approved.

Throughout the episodes described here, Cardinal Burke has clearly had differences with this pontificate, but he has always sought to draw careful distinctions between his relationship with the pope as a person and the Petrine Office. He has avoided speculation about the pope’s motives in changing Burke’s offices and insists instead that his actions during this papacy are not “contra–Pope Francis.”He asserts “we must always distinguish the body of the man who is the Roman Pontiff from the body of the Roman Pontiff, that is, from the man who exercises the office of St. Peter in the Church.” He also stresses that “any expression of doctrine or practice that is not in conformity with the Divine Revelation, contained in the Holy Scriptures and in the Tradition of the Church, cannot constitute an authentic exercise of the Apostolic or Petrine ministry and must be rejected by the faithful.”

Cardinal Burke states that his mission is to “defend the Catholic faith, and that means defending the Office of Peter to which the Pope has succeeded.” Whatever the implications of these views, he insists:

I will never be part of any schism, even if I should be punished within the Church for what I in good conscience am trying to do to teach the Catholic faith and to defend it as I am obliged to do, first of all as a Christian but even more so as a Bishop and a Cardinal of the Church. I will never abandon the Catholic Church, because it is the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, who established Peter as the Head of the Apostolic College, as the principle of the unity [of] the Church throughout the world — and once we no longer have faith in our Lord’s abiding presence in the Church, also through the Petrine Office, we cease to be Catholic, and we enter into that whole world of unending divisions among Christians.

Fiducia Supplicans

In an interview with St. Michael’s Abbey in June 2024, Cardinal Burke did not comment specifically on the Pope’s 2023 declaration allowing same-sex blessings, but said: “We affront the Lord, we show profound lack of respect for Our Lord in love for Him if in some way we try to ask blessing for something that’s sinful.”

Other Criticisms of Francis and Consequences

In 2018, Burke also spoke of the limits of papal power in an implicit critique of the Francis pontificate. He underlined the importance of popes safeguarding and promoting Church unity, and warned that papal actions that fail to act in conformity with Divine Revelation, Sacred Scripture and Tradition “must be rejected by the faithful.”

In response to Burke’s criticisms of the pontificate, Francis has stripped him of almost all curial positions. In 2023, he removed the cardinal’s stipend, pension and healthcare, and attempted to evict him from his Vatican apartment on the grounds that he has been  “working against the Church and against the papacy” and that he had sown “disunity” in the Church. The Pope had initially planned to quadruple the rent of the apartment which Burke had had refurbished, funded by the St. Louis archdiocese, in the late 2000s. The Pope granted Burke a private audience in late December 2023 to discuss the matter.

Burke himself sees his role as being supportive and believes it is his obligation as a cardinal adviser to the Pope to offer constructive criticism, always by drawing on faith, reason and apostolic tradition. He stresses that his concerns over recent documents or decisions coming from the Vatican stem from his care for souls, his commitment to Church doctrine which he sees as inextricably tied to such care, and his love for the Holy Father and the Petrine Office. He insists the role of every cardinal is to support the office of the Roman pontiff, which includes offering counsel and doctrinal assistance when needed.

• 1
  Michael W. Chapman, “Cardinal Burke: ‘We Have a Very Grave Problem of a Homosexual Culture in the Church,’ ” CNS News, 17 August 2018.
• 2
  The cardinal’s expressed view of the authority of “the word of God” as “divinely revealed,” with a reference to Dei Verbum, suggests that he accepts the inerrancy of Scripture.
• 3
  Francis X. Rocca, “Cardinal Burke Optimistic on Reconciliation with SSPX,” Catholic News Service, 15 June 2012.
• 4
  Christine Niles, “Cdl Burke: SSPX In Schism,” Church Militant, 2 October 2017
• 5
  The dispute was also seen as a microcosm of the crisis in the Vatican and wider Church, added to which was the order’s considerable financial resources, some hidden in a shady Swiss trust, unknown to Festing, and which became apparent only around the time of the dispute.
• 6
  See Cardinal Parolin’s profile for more details on his role in the affair.
• 7
  The audience transcription makes clear that while Boeselager claimed that the findings of the commission established by Festing were inaccurate, when challenged by Burke at the December 6, 2016, meeting to explain why he, Boeselager, had not requested corrections to the document throughout 2016 or provided materials to disprove its investigative conclusions, Boeselager had no response. This, Burke is reported to have said, did not surprise him, for had heard Boeselager himself vocalize a justification for precisely the dubious questions in practice — a justification that the commission also asserts was invoked by MI personnel in defense of the dubious practice.
• 8
  “The Church’s teaching on the intrinsic evil of procured abortion forbids the destruction of human beings from the moment of fertilization through every state of their development.” Most Reverend Raymond L. Burke, Pastoral Letter Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good (1 October 2004), 12. “It is intrinsically evil to destroy human embryos, even for some intended good. The Holy Father further reminds us that the solemn duty to protect human life extends also to ‘living human embryos and fetuses sometimes specifically “produced” for [experimentation] by in vitro fertilization either to be used as “biological material” or as providers of organs or tissues for transplants in the treatment of certain diseases.’ ” Burke, Our Civic Responsibility, 12-13. “Another intrinsic moral evil which seemingly is growing in acceptability in our society is euthanasia, ‘an action or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 2277). It is important to distinguish euthanasia from: (1) the legitimate decision ‘to forgo medical procedures which no longer correspond the real situation of the patient; and (2) the legitimate decision to use ‘various types of painkillers and sedatives for easing the patient’s pain when this involves risk of shortening life’ (Evangelium vitae, no. 65b-c).” Burke,Our Civic Responsibility, 12-13. “Human cloning, for any reason, is ‘in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union’ (Donum vitae, I, no. 6), inasmuch as it reduces procreation to a species of manufacture, and treats human life as a product of human artifice.” Burke, Our Civic Responsibility, 14.
• 9
  Obviously, Cardinal Burke does not think that marriage is the exclusive vocation for either men or women.
• 10
  See Burke, Our Civic Responsibility, 14-16.
• 11
  Cardinal Burke has rejected claims that Pope Benedict’s resignation was invalid or incomplete or that Benedict tried to bifurcate or expand the office. According to Burke, “it would be difficult to say it’s not valid.” Not only does His Eminence doubt that Pope Benedict intended to alter the papacy, but any intent to do so would be “fantasy,” and Burke does not think that such “mistaken notions,” if held, would “redound to non-abdication of the Petrine office.” Further: “Whatever [Pope Benedict] may have theoretically thought about the papacy, the reality is what is expressed in the Church’s discipline. He withdrew his will to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, and therefore he ceased to be the Vicar of Christ on earth.” Thus, in Cardinal Burke’s view, Pope Benedict XVI ceased to be pope in 2013 — and indeed, Burke thinks, someone who is not pope should avoid the use of titles or dress that may suggest otherwise.
• 12
  Cardinal Burke had also regularly expressed his concerns about the Holy Communion for remarried divorcees issue, most notably in the book Remaining in the Truth of Christ (Ignatius Press, 2014).