Fascinating leaders

The chief justice: Archbishop Raymond Burke

This interview was conducted shortly before Archbishop Burke left St. Louis for his new post in Rome as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s supreme court. A link to the article in The Catholic World Report (Nov. 2008) follows these excerpts.

Among your many scholarly articles on canon law was the 2007 treatise entitled “The Discipline Regarding the Denial of Those Obstinately Persevering in Manifest Grave Sin.” Prior to that in 2004, you announced that then-presidential candidate Senator John Kerry would be denied Holy Communion in your archdiocese.

Some say that your statements on canon law regarding denial of the Eucharist to those who are manifestly unworthy “risk politicizing the Eucharist.” What do you say to that?

BURKE: It is not a question of politicizing the Eucharist. It is a question of showing the right respect for the Eucharist and also safeguarding individuals from committing sacrilege. And so we have to refuse Holy Communion to public officials who persist in supporting legislation contrary to the natural moral law, after they have been duly admonished.

If I read your article correctly, you place equal responsibility on both parties: the communicant and the minister, whether he is a priest, deacon, or extraordinary minister.

Burke: Yes, that is correct. And it is not a question of my opinion in the matter. Church discipline demands that not only the individual communicant be attentive to respect the Holy Eucharist, but that also the minister of the Holy Eucharist also show respect for the sacredness of the Holy Eucharist—it is the most sacred reality in the Church.

Why do you think that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ documents on worthy reception of the Eucharist only place responsibility on the communicant?

Burke: Because the documents are not complete. They do not report the Church’s discipline in its completeness. The conference of bishops did not want to take up what is clearly the discipline of the universal Church, in canon 915, placing the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the minister of Holy Communion to deny Holy Communion to a person who approaches to receive and whom he knows to be persistent in public and grave sin, after having been admonished.

It seems like you are saying that if a known abortion cooperator, such as a lawmaker, approaches the Eucharist, but has not been publicly admonished by his bishop, the minister should not deny him Holy Communion.

BURKE: I understand your concern. The discipline of the Church, however, provides that a person who is publicly and gravely sinning be admonished not to approach to receive Holy Communion.

Generally, in my experience, once I admonished, for instance, Catholic legislators who were voting in favor of abortion legislation, they did not presume to approach to receive Holy Communion. The discipline does not open a way to give Holy Communion to those in public and grave sin by failing to admonish them. The bishop and his priests have the gravest obligation to admonish them. If not, they will answer before God.

Some people see you as controversial, to put it lightly.

BURKE: …The media want to discredit me by saying, “Well, you are just a difficult person or you are not pastoral.” It is they who have created the image of me as difficult and unpastoral. It is not the reality. I am certainly not a perfect priest or bishop, but I do have a pastor’s heart. I think that the St. Louis Catholics who have met me and know me, even if they do not agree with me in every decision, understand that.

Indeed, you have the reputation of a kind and fatherly pastor. For example, there was the “Coming Out of Sodom” story in Celebrate Life, the amazing testimony by a man who suffered same-sex attraction, surrendered to it, and renounced the faith to you as bishop of La Crosse, but who returned to the Church and sacraments with your help. Now that you are leaving the United States, would you please offer some counsel to American Catholics?

BURKE: The counsel I would offer is simply that our nation desperately needs Catholics to live their faith with integrity, with enthusiasm, with energy. In so many ways, what the Church teaches addresses the many trials that our nation is facing. For example, the whole question of respect for human life. So I just urge Catholics to learn their faith more deeply and to give themselves wholeheartedly to living their faith.

In urging Catholics in our nation to know their faith and live it, I would urge especially the invocation and intercession of the Blessed Mother, under her title Our Lady Guadalupe, the Mother of America, the Star of the New Evangelization…

Continue reading The Chief Justice by Anita Crane

For more on Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke, see:

John Allen’s post More on Burke’s move to Vatican court

Burke’s cirriculum vitae at the Archdiocese of St. Louis

© 2008 anitacrane.com.