(LifeSiteNews) — During a recent video interview with The Daily Wire podcast host Michael Knowles, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke called on the faithful devoted to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) to express their love for the ancient Roman liturgy:
The most important thing is for those who love the Traditional Latin Mass to make known to their bishops and to the Holy Father, most of all, their desire to worship according to this form…
But then he said something quite controversial:
… and that they’re not calling into question the validity of the Second Vatican Council.
So that’s really interesting. According to Cardinal Burke, in addition to telling the pope that they want the Latin Mass, traditional Catholics are to tell him they don’t reject the validity of the Second Vatican Council. And that too needs a massive explanation, because a lot of people are going to take that as “Cardinal Burke is saying that as the Second Vatican Council is beyond reproach, we have to follow it…”
No, actually Cardinal Burke himself has been a critic of certain parts of the Second Vatican Council. I’ll read you some of that from him himself.
Burke has described the post-conciliar liturgical reform as an abuse of the Council; he has said it was not due to the Council’s teaching but to the way in which that teaching was abused. He’s talked about how the rite was radically reduced, coming from the faulty interpretations of the Council. So you couldn’t call that a criticism of the Council itself per se, but the Council allowed for these interpretations.
Burke argues that the Council Fathers were hindered or betrayed by later interpretations of what they did. He rejects what he’d call the “hermeneutic of rupture.” Many people posit, “Wait a minute, you broke with a lot of things at the Second Vatican Council.” Burke, I think, would argue, “No, we have to interpret it in light of what came before.”
READ: Cardinal Burke encouraged by future of Latin Mass: ‘They’re filled with young families!’
We’ll get back to that, but first I want to introduce you to one of the bishops who was actually at the Council: Cardinal Walter Kasper. Kasper, by the way, is the one whom Pope Francis initially went to to start the deliberations around Amoris Laetitia, about changing the teaching of the Church on divorce, remarriage, and the possibility of receiving Communion.
Even if a new couple isn’t able to get an annulment of their previous marriages and also don’t live as brother and sister, they are nevertheless now allowed to receive Holy Communion in certain circumstances. So it’s a massive departure from the Church’s teaching. That’s what Walter Kasper gave us.
In fact, he said something extremely interesting in a 2013 article in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper. He said that the Council Fathers often had to use, and I quote, “compromise formulas in which often the positions of the majority are located immediately next to those of the minority designed to delimit them. Thus, the conciliar texts themselves have a huge potential for conflict, opening the door to a selective reception in either direction.”
He’s telling us that this was a measure that happened within the Council documents, and it was very purposeful. That’s why you often hear people say the Second Vatican Council is not erroneous, but it leaves loopholes you could drive a Mack truck through. So it’s destructive in that sense.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider has often said that the Council actually needs correction in certain areas, but also that its more ambiguous phraseology needs to be amended.
Beyond that, you have very strong criticisms of the Second Vatican Council from Bishop Joseph Strickland recently, as well as from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who has said many things, including that it was a launch point for some of the horrors we see right now in the Church.
READ: Bishop Strickland asks whether Vatican II surrendered to modernism
So let us ask, “What is the Second Vatican Council? What authority does it have?” This is where I go back to Cardinal Burke. Here’s Burke basically saying, “We must affirm as Catholics altogether the validity of the Second Vatican Council.”
But remember: Councils aren’t ex cathedra statements which are super-binding on people insofar as if you don’t believe it, you’re not even a Catholic. But they are an act of the authentic Magisterium, and so are all teachings of faith and morals coming from the pope himself when issued in authentic teaching documents.
So you end up with a slight problem right there for Cardinal Burke and many in the Church who follow this line, and it’s a very difficult issue. Let’s leave the Second Vatican Council aside and move to documents from Pope Francis, like Amoris Laetitia, which are official teaching documents on issues of faith and morals where Cardinal Burke himself has disagreed.
For my full analysis of Cardinal Burke’s interview with Michael Knowles, tune in to my video here.
