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Cardinal Raymond BurkeOlivier Figueras / LifeSiteNews

VATICAN CITY, November 10, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Raymond Burke said Donald Trump's election as U.S. president is a “clear sign of the will of the people” and a victory for the pro-life cause.

Burke is the patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the former Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s highest court. He is one of the most well-known defenders of life, family, and Catholic orthodoxy.

In an interview with the National Catholic Register's Ed Pentin, Burke said Trump's Catholic advisory committee and the fact that “he tends to associate himself with very sound advisers” are a “hopeful sign” that he will keep his campaign promises.

Some members of the Catholic advisory committee “are well-known to me, and they are very fine people,” said Burke. 

“Of course, after any election, this is the big question: Will the candidate be true to his word, follow through?” he noted. “We have to hope and pray that he does that. One thing I heard about him is that he tends to associate himself with very sound advisers, and I would trust that he will do that.”

“I trust that [Trump] will address the many moral problems with the health care mandate that was pushed during these last eight years,” said Burke.

Catholics must “be attentive to insist on what’s morally right” under a Trump presidency, given concerns about Trump's vulgarity and stated support for torturing terrorists and killing their families, Burke said, but Catholics could “in good conscience” vote for him. This was because “in all that he said, at least there was a hope of advancing in some way the common good of the nation,” the cardinal explained.

“I don’t think the new president will be inspired by hatred in his treatment of the issue of immigration,” said Burke. “These are prudential questions — of how much immigration a country can responsibly sustain, also what is the meaning of immigration, and if the immigrants are coming from one country — questions that principally address that country’s responsibility for its own citizens. … A Christian cannot close his heart to a true refugee, this is an absolute principle, there’s no question about it, but it should be done with prudence and true charity. Charity is always intelligent; it demands to know: Exactly who are these immigrants? Are they really refugees, and what communities can sustain them?”

What Trump has “said about pro-life issues, family issues and also issues regarding religious freedom shows a great disposition to hear the Church on these matters and to understand that these are fundamentally questions of the moral law, not questions of religious confession,” said Burke. “They are questions of the moral law, which religion in the country, as the Founding Fathers understood from the start, is meant to support and to sustain. The government needs the help of religious leadership in order to hold to an ethical norm.”

Burke said he hopes Trump “will follow the principles and dictates of our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” “turn out to be a good president and heal the divisions in the country,” and bring unity to American citizens.

His full interview can be read here.

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