Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Wuerl grant interviews on synod
October 07, 2014
Two American cardinals have granted interviews to Vatican Radio on the Synod of Bishops on the family.
“One of the biggest challenges” facing families “is the defective catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church-- I can speak from my experience in the United States-- for the past 40 to 50 years,” said Cardinal Raymond Burke. “Children and young people are not well catechized with regard to marriage.”
“Coupled with that is the recent entrance of a so-called ‘gender theory’ that alienates human sexuality from its essentially conjugal meaning,” he added. “This is now being brought into schools along with the advancement of the homosexual agenda.”
“Pastoral solutions to intractable problems are not going to come instantly,” said Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who spoke of the influence of secularism.
“The secular world, the secular vision doesn’t have a lot of space for a relationship with God, or a transcendent reality beyond us,” he said. “That world has created a individualism and a self-referential world that doesn’t leave a lot of space for a healthy marriage and a family life that is going to follow on from that.”
Many Catholics “have experienced the failure that the secular vision brings,” he added. “We have to be able to pastorally say to people that we know their suffering, the broken condition of a dysfunctional marriage and family and we have to be able to be there.”
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Further information:
- Cardinal Burke: Christ's truth is at the heart of marriage (Vatican Radio)
- Card. Wuerl warns against expecting instant pastoral solutions from Synod (Vatican Radio)
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