Folks, what follows is a transcript of an interview of Cardinal-Designate, Archbishop Raymond Burke, formerly of St. Louis and know the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highes tribunal. The interview took place on October 20, 2010 in Rome and was conducted by Thomas J. McKenna, president of Catholic Action for Faith and Family. You may watch the full 25-minute interview here. (También en español | Em Português)
Good afternoon! My name is Thomas McKenna, and I’m the founder and president of Catholic Action for Faith and Family, a Catholic lay-inspired organization that aims to uphold and promote the values of our Catholic faith.
I’m here today in Rome with His Excellency, Archbishop Raymond Burke, who just hours ago [learned that he would be] elevated to the College of Cardinals by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. I have invited Archbishop Burke today to discuss with me a pastoral letter that he wrote while serving as Archbishop of St. Louis, a pastoral letter that addressed the Catholic voters and their obligations.
Your Excellency, I am very pleased to be with you today and I am very honored, especially on a day that’s so special to you, that the Holy Father has elevated you to the College of Cardinals. Your Excellency, it’s an honor to be with you here today and I wanted to be the first to congratulate you on the honor that you received from the Holy Father.
AB – Thank you very much, Thomas.
TM – One of the questions that I would like to ask you is, just to start with, why did Your Excellency as Archbishop of that time, during the [2004] election, why did you conceive the idea to write this pastoral letter on Catholics and their voting?
AB – I had discovered over the years that many people simply were confused about their moral obligation in voting. Many Catholics have the idea that while they might hold in their personal lives certain moral truths, that when it came to voting it was all right simply to bracket those truths and to vote according to other criteria. And so I wanted to make sure that the faithful would realize that they had a very serious moral obligation in voting to vote for those candidates who would uphold the truth of the moral law, which of course also serves the greatest good of everyone in society.
So that was my principal reason in writing the pastoral letter – to set forth again for the faithful in the Archdiocese of St. Louis and others beyond who would read the pastoral letter, those fundamental moral principles which should guide us in voting.
This is of particular significance in a democratic republic like our own, because we really cooperate in the laws and policies of our nation through those whom we elect to office. And so we cannot say that, for instance, in our society the fact that there is widespread practice of procured abortion or there is a growing permission of “marriages,” so-called marriages between persons of the same sex, we can no longer say, “Why, I don’t have anything to do with that.” Well, we do, because we elect those people to office who permit such things in our society. So that was my principal reason in writing the letter.
TM – That is very important. Very important for our time. Clarity. That is something that is very lacking today, it seems, is clarity.
AB - We cannot do anything good if we’re not telling the truth. There is a kind of strange idea that developed where people think that somehow, by not being clear and truthful, that we can somehow still do what is right and good – and that simply doesn’t work.
TM – Your Excellency, what would you say to those who would say that a bishop writing a pastoral letter about voting is interfering and breaking the so-called covenant we have of separation of Church and State in our country?
AB – Well, the sole notion of separation of Church and State as to be properly understood in our nation, was on the Establishment Clause, [which] is the real name of that part of our Constitution or the Amendments to our Constitution. And what it means is we don’t have a State religion in the United States, for instance. It is not a country in which the Catholic Faith or any other faith is given any particular status.
At the same time, the Founders of our country were very interested in promoting religious life among the people, because they understood that religion would inspire in the people those highest motives so that they would be good citizens and also promote the good of the whole country.
And so, as a bishop it’s my obligation, in fact, to urge the faithful to carry out their civic duty in accord with their Catholic Faith. At the same time, I cannot and I did not, in that pastoral letter, engage actually in politics, in the sense of taking a position to favor one candidate over another. No, simply what I did was to give to the voters those principles which they would need so that they could decide for whom they wanted to vote. I never told anyone to vote for this candidate or that candidate, but simply gave them the principles which they would need to vote in a morally good way for whichever candidate was running for office.
TM – Right. Your Excellency, one of I think [the] gravest issues that we see today, and I know that many politicians and people, others, don’t want to hear about it, is the issue of procured abortion in our country. To date, the figures are conservatively, maybe are at least 50 million officially, babies have been killed in their mothers’ wombs. And a lot of people find different ways around that. What would you say, just as a base line here, is it ever licit for a Catholic to vote for a pro-abortion candidate, a candidate who either in a platform or who has voted, has shown himself to support that. Is it ever valid?
AB – No. You can never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion. You may in some circumstances where you don’t have any candidate who is proposing to eliminate all abortion, choose the candidate who will most limit this grave evil in our country, but you could never justify voting for a candidate who not only does not want to limit abortion but believes that it should be available to everyone.
TM – It’s not only in our country, in the United States, that the issue of abortion is raging. Right now, currently, in Brazil, the largest Catholic country in the world, where abortion is still illegal, there is a big debate going on, because one of the candidates who is representing a party there is pro-abortion, is on record as being pro-abortion, and the Catholic bishops of the country have come out with statements there, some of them together making strong statements. I would just like to say, if you could say, you who have been in the United States here and wrote this pastoral in 2004, if you could say a word to the bishops there, what would you say to them in [the] face of this, because it is a very crucial time in their country, for they do not have abortion yet and the issue of this election could be decisive?
AB – I would certainly encourage them, and first of all commend them for exercising their office as teachers of the Faith in a most critical area. How could a bishop sleep at night who wouldn’t teach his faithful, warn his faithful about such a grave evil as abortion threatening to be visited upon them, upon their nation? So these bishops are much to be commended, and what they are doing is simply an exercise of their office as teachers of the Faith and of morals. And as I say, this is the most fundamental and critical area, the protection of innocent and defenseless human life. And so I promise that I will pray for these bishops and for their continued courage in announcing the Faith.
Sadly, in the society in which we live, it is oftentimes difficult for bishops to carry out their office because they are accused of being partisan or other accusations are made against them. But what a bishop should simply do is say to himself, “What does the Catholic Faith teach about this matter and how can I best announce it to the people, to alert them so that they do what in their consciences they are obliged to do?”
TM – What would you say as a teacher, as a father of the Church, say to a Catholic who says, “I think this socially, or for other reasons, even if the Church says this, I want to vote the other way?”
AB – I would simply say to them: Do you follow the Golden Rule that was taught to us by Our Lord Himself in the Gospels? In other words, do you “do unto others as you would want them to do unto you?” Do you consider it really fair to advance some interest you have, which may be a good interest, whether it is the environment or whatever it might be, at the cost of denying to other members of society, and especially those who depend upon us completely for life itself, to deny them the right to life? And I think that if most people would reflect in this way, simply in terms of the Golden Rule, that they would understand that it can never be right.
No matter what good I’m trying to achieve by voting for a candidate who favors that good, but at the same time favors the intrinsic evil, the grave evil of abortion, they can never justify that, voting for that candidate. And so I would just urge people to consider those smallest brothers and sisters of ours, those fellow members of God’s family whom our society teaches us to disregard or even not to think of as fellow human beings, but who really and truly are fellow human beings, and to do what’s right for them, even as we would want when we were such small little beings in our mothers’ wombs in the embryonic stage of development or along the way before our birth, as we would want voters to vote to protect our lives and to safeguard our lives.
TM – A war is raging in the United States, as you well know, over the issue of so-called same-sex “marriage.” One of the greatest obstacles, you might say, or questions for Catholics, [is] that many of them feel that this is discrimination—that is something that is being presented—and that we are a nation of fairness, and by not allowing people of the same sex to be married and to live equal to those that are one man and one woman, that somehow they are being discriminated against. That has affected many Catholics, especially in my experience with them. What would the Church’s response be [to the idea] that this should be allowed, because it is only an act of discrimination like we had back in the early days of our country where black people were discriminated against, which is something we saw, unjust, but how does that compare with what we see today?
AB – Where there is unjust discrimination – for instance, where you say that a fellow human being, because of the color of his skin, is not a part of the same race as someone, say, who is a Caucasian, that is a kind of discrimination which is unjust and immoral. But there is a discrimination which is perfectly just and good, and that is the discrimination between what is right and what is wrong. Between what is according to our human nature and what is contrary to our human nature. So the Catholic Church, in teaching that sexual acts between persons of the same sex are intrinsically evil, are against nature itself, is simply announcing the truth, helping people to discriminate right from wrong in terms of their own activities.
What does this mean in the concrete case of someone whom we encounter, who, for whatever reason, is attracted to act in this way, is attracted sexually to persons of the same sex, and is even attracted to sexual activity with a person of the same sex? We must be absolutely compassionate. We have no right to deny the human dignity of that individual who suffers from this attraction, which is against nature. But our compassion for the person should first and foremost lead us to be honest with him or her, and to try to help him or her to come to know that this attraction is not right, and to deal with it in a way in which we are all capable of dealing with it, as moral beings, to correct in themselves this attraction, and to strive more and more to redirect their affections, and so forth, in a way which respects God’s Law.
So it’s not at all an unfair discrimination to say, well, “no.” [For] persons who are attracted in this way, we can’t do them any good by making up a new idea of marriage contrary to the way in which God has created us, so that now a marriage between a man and a woman is no different than a “marriage” between a man and a man, and a woman and a woman. This, when we stop to think about it, is simply right reasoning. Our Lord illuminates us also in this regard through reason, but then we find the teachings of the Church in Holy Scriptures and in Tradition, the further illuminations, so that we understand why same-sex activity is always and everywhere wrong.
TM: Your Excellency, in the pastoral letter that you wrote, there was a very important point that you spoke about: public figures who vote pro-abortion, or contrary to the Church’s teachings on other issues, and continue to go to Communion, or continue to go to church and present themselves as Catholic. This gives scandal. Could you say something about what exactly is this scandal, and how serious is it?
AB: It’s very serious. I can tell you that. Because many people, Catholics as well as non-Catholics, have begun to believe that the Catholic Church’s teaching on the evil of abortion must not be very firm, or maybe even that it is about to be changed in some way. I can give you an example. In 2004 I was visiting with a very highly placed official in Washington who is not Catholic, but is a very devout Christian, a very sincere Christian. He asked me – we were having a lengthy visit alone – and he asked me at a certain point, “Do you think that when this Holy Father” – referring to the Venerable Pope John Paul II – “dies, that the next Holy Father may change the teaching on abortion?”
I was really shocked. I said to him, “What would make you ask that question? The Church can’t change its teaching on abortion. It’s part of the natural moral law. The Church has only held more and more to announce it, and be faithful to it.” He said, “Well, I couldn’t help but think that there must be something about it that’s not very firm, because I bet I could give you the name of 70 or 80 Catholics here on Capitol Hill who regularly vote for abortion legislation.”
So what is scandal? Scandal is either doing something, or omitting to do something, that leads other people into confusion or error about the moral good. Here’s the perfect example: Catholics who betray their Catholic Faith in political life, as legislators or judges or whatever it may be, leading other people to believe that abortion must not be the great evil that it is, or that abortion is, in fact, a good thing in some circumstances.
Today it’s rendered more important than ever to consider the reality of scandal because there is a tendency – if you say to someone today, “I’m scandalized by that” – the tendency today is to say, “The problem is with you. This is a good person, and he is doing what he thinks is right” and so forth, without respect for what is true and what isn’t true – “and it’s you who are the cause of our difficulty by criticizing him.”
This isn’t true at all. When we express the scandal that it has caused to us, then we call the person who has caused the scandal to a reform, and, one hopes, to a reparation of the evil done. It’s not a question of accusing others falsely. It’s not a question of introducing disunity or discord within the community. It’s really a question of seeking those foundations where there is real unity. In other words, unity in the promotion of the common good. So this idea of scandal must really be recaptured because it’s at work. Whether people recognize it or not. Many people have been led astray with regard to human life, and now we see it particularly with regard to same-sex unions.
TM: A public official who has given scandal in this way and who is Catholic, when he finally comes to the understanding of that, what type of reparation or amendment of life would qualify as making up for the evil that was done by the scandal in today’s world?
AB: First of all, there has to be a genuine reform of heart. That’s done through the Sacrament of Penance, through the satisfaction, or the penance which is assigned in the Sacrament. But then one has to recognize that because I am a public figure, because, as a public figure I have promoted something that is very evil, I have also publicly to renounce the error which I was operating in and into which I was leading other people.
So, to me, the only adequate thing is for that public figure to say, “I was wrong, and now I understand the truth about human life. And I deeply regret what I’ve done.” For instance, in the medical field, someone like the figure of Bernard Nathanson, who was a great promoter of procured abortion, and then made reparation, recognized his error, and then began to write books and give talks, to try to make reparation for the many, many lives in which he was the instrument of their murder.
I remember, too, hearing a physician speak when I was bishop of LaCrosse. He had been doing abortions for 14 years. Finally, he came to understand the evil of abortion. How did it happen? He and his wife had a little daughter who was five years old. One day she ran out to play with her friend across the street. She didn’t look both ways and she was struck by a car. Sadly, she died.
He said that it didn’t strike him at the moment of her death. Of course, they were terribly grieved. They had her funeral and eventually he went back to his practice. He said that when he went back into the operating studio to perform the abortion, a light went on. He finally understood: “Here I’ve been grieving over the death of my little daughter…” At that, he stopped performing abortions. He was dedicating his life – this was some years ago; I’m sure he continues – going around talking to various groups of people, especially young people, about the evil of abortion and trying to make reparation in that way. He was stating very openly his error and his profound sorrow for all the human lives that he had taken.
TM: That’s a very moving story, Your Excellency. To me, that shows how God will give sufficient grace for a conversion.
AB: He does. It’s remarkable. You say to yourself: “How can someone ever be forgiven for committing abortion?” God does forgive us. His mercy is immeasurable, but that mercy then leads us to make that reparation which we, humanly, need to do in order to repair the evil done and to draw people to the good.
TM: I want to thank you for your time and for sharing your insight and inspirations into the importance of Catholics voting and how that can affect our civil life as well as our spiritual life. I would like to ask [whether] you have any closing words you would like to say to our fellow Americans?
AB: First, I want to thank you for all the work that your organization is doing in order to promote the common good in our nation. Second, [I want to] to invite all those who are listening to us to invoke in a particular way the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She has been given to us as the Mother of America. She is our Mother. She is the Mother of Our Lord Jesus, but also [in a] very particular way, our Mother. She appeared on our continent in 1531 and showed Herself to be the Protectress of all human life.
Let us pray in a very special way, through her intercession, uniting out hearts to her Immaculate Heart, praying for an end to the evils of abortion and all the attacks on the family, especially the promotions of “same-sex unions.” Let us be confident that Our Lord will hear our prayer. Through our feeble efforts, and through our prayers, we will win for our brothers and sisters that gift of God’s love and mercy.
TM: Thank you very much. Once again, congratulations on your elevation to Cardinal.
AB: Thank you. God bless you!
Copyright 2010 Catholic Action for Faith and Family. Reprinted with Permission.
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