Cardinal Burke on the synod and the family

March 10, 2015

Cardinal Raymond Burke delivered a talk in England on March 6 devoted to “remaining in the truth of Christ on holy matrimony.”

“At the present moment in the Church, there is perhaps no more critical issue for us to address than the truth about marriage,” he said. “In a world in which the integrity of marriage has been under attack for decades, the Church has remained a faithful herald of the truth about God’s plan for man and woman in the faithful, indissoluble and procreative union of marriage.”

Criticizing positions articulated by Cardinal Walter Kasper and the midterm report of the October 2014 synod of bishops on the family, Cardinal Burke added:

Even within the Church, there are those who would obscure the truth of the indissolubility of marriage in the name of mercy, who condone the violation of the conjugal union by means of contraception in the name of pastoral understanding, and who, in the name of tolerance, remain silent about the attack on the very integrity of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. There are even those, too, who deny that the married receive a particular grace to live heroically in faithful, enduring and life-giving love, while Our Lord Himself has assured us that God gives to the married the grace to live daily in accord with the truth of their state in life.

In our day, our witness to the splendor of the truth about marriage must be limpid and heroic. We must be ready to suffer, as Christians have suffered down the ages, to honor and foster Holy Matrimony.

 

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Further information:

• Cardinal calls for saint-like love in defence of marriage (Voice of the Family)
• Full text of address