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Cardinal Raymond Burke at the “Our Lady of Guadalupe" conference in Wisconsin, July, 2018.Lisa Bourne / LifeSiteNews

LA CROSSE, Wisconsin, August 16, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Rebellion against Christ and His Law have worsened in the last several decades, Cardinal Raymond Burke said in a recent address, and this is taking the world and “even the Church” into confusion, discord, and self-destruction.

“When we reflect upon the rebellion against the good order and peace with which God endows every human heart, especially through the conscience, leading the world and even the Church into ever greater confusion, division, destruction of self and of others,” he said, “we understand, as Pope Pius XI understood, the importance of our worship of Christ under His title of King of Heaven and Earth.”

Only Christ can conquer the disorder in the world, the cardinal said, and this is achieved fundamentally through obedience to Him. 

Speaking to pilgrims at the July 27-28 Conference, “Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the Civilization of Love,” Cardinal Burke said Christ’s kingship is applied through conscience, which today is often falsely interpreted as being developed via a person’s thoughts or wishes.

“The Kingship of Christ over human hearts is exercised, most of all, through the conscience,” Cardinal Burke said, “the voice of God” expressing His law written upon every human heart.” 

“The conscience, therefore, is not, as is often falsely understood and stated today, formed by the thoughts and desires of the individual but by the truth which ever purifies individual thoughts and desires,” he said, “and directs them in conformity with the law of love of God and neighbor.”

The conference was held at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin and presented by the Queen of Americas Guild. The Shrine, founded by Cardinal Burke nearly two decades ago while he was bishop there is dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and of the unborn.  

The Blessed Mother in the devotion of Our Lady of Guadalupe leads us directly to Christ as King, the cardinal told conference pilgrims.

“It is the Kingship of Christ, the order and peace of Christ the King, that Our Lady unfailingly shows to her children and procures for them,” he said.

The disorder in the world mirrors and surpasses that of past times, he said, especially testing the family.

“There is no question that the family faces many and formidable challenges in today’s culture which is confused and in error regarding human life itself, not to speak of its cradle in the family,” said Cardinal Burke. “Christ alone teaches the family how to navigate the treacherous waters of the world in which we live, but He also bestows upon the family the order which is the precondition of the earthly happiness and the eternal salvation of each member of the family.”

The Church has always recognized Christ as King of Heaven and Earth, established through Divine Revelation and Christ’s own words, the cardinal said. Pius XI founded the annual feast day of Christ the King in his 1925 Encyclical Quas Primas to counter growing secularization, materialism and relativism. Cardinal Burke also cited martyrs Saint José Sánchez del Río and Blessed Miguel Pro as having faced the violence of these forces that sought to destroy the Church in Mexico.

“We cannot fail to observe that the situation of rebellion against Christ and his law, which Pope Pius XI described in 1925 and which Catholics in Mexico faced in the 1920s, has only grown worse in our time and attempts ever more to infiltrate the life of the Church herself and to corrupt the Bride of Christ,” the cardinal said, “to lead her into grievous infidelity through an apostasy from the Apostolic Faith.”

‘The Kingship of Christ over human hearts is not some ideal’

Discussing the issue of obedience to God in the hearts of humans, the cardinal told conference pilgrims that the Kingship of Christ clearly extends to the individual human heart, and that through obedience to God, true freedom is attained. 

“His Kingship demands the obedience which frees the individual to become all that God has created him or her to be,” he said. 

This idea is not an out-of-reach ideal, he added. 

“The Kingship of Christ over human hearts is not some ideal to which all are called but only a few can attain,” said Cardinal Burke. “It is, rather, a reality of 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.”

Recognizing Christ as King is even more important with the increased rebellion today against Him and His Law, the cardinal said.

Communion with Christ the King

Worshipping Christ as king is not a form of ideology, the cardinal said, nor is it the worship of an idea or an ideal. 

“It is communion with Christ the King, especially through the Most Holy Eucharist, by which our own royal mission in Him is both understood, embraced, and lived,” he said. “It is the reality in which we are called to live. It is the reality of obedience to the Law of God written upon our hearts and into the very nature of all things, and taught to us by God the Son Incarnate in the Church.”